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EROIC ^ ^ « 
PERSONALITIES 



BY 



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LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 

Author of "The Christ Brotherhood," '•Immortal Hymns 
and Their Story," " Christ and His Friends," Etc. 




NEW YORK: EATOX & MAINS 
CIXCINXATl : CURTS & JEXXIXGS 



COPY, 
1898. 



^ 



;OPItS.R£C£JVEo- 






4238 

Copyright by 

EATON & MAINS, 

1898. 



Eaton &. Mains Press, 
150 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



To 

My Friend and Hero, 

The Hon. William W. Smith. 

This Volume is 

Affectionately Dedicated 

By the Author. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. A Heroic Business Career g 

II. The Shepherdess of the Black Sheep 15 

III. Capturing a Lawyer 20 

IV. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's First Speech 26 

V. The Peacemaker's Blessing 32 

VI. Tunneling for a Soul 3S 

VII. The Pilot's Conversion 43 

VIII. The Mother of" Ben-Hur" 49 

IX. Diaz — the Apostle of Cuba 54 

X. The Heroine of Alaska 60 

XI. The Heroism of Forbearance 66 

XII. Struggling Genius 71 

XIII. Kindling the Gospel Fire in a Xorllurn 

Wigwam 76 

XIV. The Heroine of the White Ribbon S2 

XV. The Apostle to the Red Men S7 

XVI. Up to Heaven on Wings of Song 92 

XVII. On the Edge of a Crevasse gS 

XVIII. Saint Content Wintergreen 104 

XIX. The Father of Prohibition no 

XX. " The Good-luck House "' 116 

XXI. Sheldon Jackson's Night on the Deep 121 

XXII. The First March of the Woman's Temperance 

Crusade 127 

XXIII. The Hour of Decision 133 

XXIV. The Heroine of a Leper Colony 139 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XXV. From Slave Kitclieii to a Collei^e Pie.'iidency 146 

XXVI. The Birth of Liberty's Hymn 152 

XXVII. The Heroism of the Pastor 15S 

XXVIII. " Mother Stewart's " First Glass 164 

XXIX. The Call of God 169 

XXX. "Mother Bickerdyke" 175 

XXXI. The Heroism of the Plodder iSi 

XXXII. A Mission to the Rich , 1S7 

XXXIII. The Heroism of Faith 193 

XXXIV. Clara Barton on the Battlefield igg 

XXXV. The Last of the Ilutchinsons 206 

XXXVI. The Deaconesses' Sheet Fund 210 

XXXVII. Grandpa Sampson's Mail Bag 215 

XXX\TII. Before the King 220 

XXXIX. A Hero from the Wigwam 226 

XL. The Author of Memorial Day 233 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Hon. \Vm. W Smith lo 

Mrs. Maud Ballington Boolh 15 

Rev. Wm. N. Brewster 20 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward 26 

Dr. William I. P'ee 32 

Helen Keller 40 

Captain Josiah John.son 43 

Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace 50 

Dr. Alberto J. Diaz 55 

Mrs. A. R. McFarland (hj 

Dr. George Lansing Taylor 67 

Rosa Bonheur, the Famous Artist 71 

Rev. Egerton Ryerson Young 77 

Miss Frances E. Willard 82 

Bishop W^hipple 83 

Mrs. Mary A. Livermore 92 

Dr. Fridtjof Nansen 9 j 

Saint Content Wintergreen 104 

The Veteran Neal Dow in his Home at Portland, Me. . . ill 

Mrs. Alice N. Lincoln 116 

Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D.L) 122 

Mrs Thompson, of Hillsboro, 123 

Dr. Jesse Bowman Young 133 

Miss Mary Reed 140 

Booker T. Washington 147 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe 153 



8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D 159 

" Mother Stewart" 164 

Rev. George C. Wilding, D.D 170 

Mary A. Biclcerdyke 176 

Samuel Wilson Naylor iSi 

Miss Jane Addams 18S 

Dr. J, Wilbur Chapman 194 

Clara Barton . . 200 

Jolin Wallace Hutchinson 207 

Mrs. Anna E. Hull 210 

Rev. William Sampson 215 

Mary Clement Leavitt 220 

Chief Joseph 227 

Mrs. John A. Logan 233 



HEROIC 
PERSONALITIES. 



I. 

A Heroic Business Career. 
r(<^^'IE forty years ago a young man be- 
V) gan his life work as a confectioner in 
* the city of Poiighkeepsie, N. Y. His 
mother was a widow, and he had a very 
small capital, but he was a brave-hearted 
youth, and set himself to work with courage 
and good will. He would make his candy 
himself, ai,id then, with his basket on his 
arm, travel the round of the stores and any 
private houses where his goods had been or- 
dered. He determined from the first that 
his candy should always be the very best 
he could make. He was scrupulously clean. 
Although his clothes were plain, his linen 
and his long white aprons were white as 
snow. One day a gentleman complimented 
him on the fact of his always being so neat 
9 



lo 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



and clean about his person and business. 
The boy flushed with pleasure under the 
compliment, but answered, with a pride that 
spoke volumes for his filial devotion, "That, 
sir, is the work of my mother." 




Hon. Wm. W. Smith. 

The outward cleanliness of this youth was 
only a suggestion of the inward purity and 
wholesomeness of his strong young soul. 
He early became a sincere Christian, and 
made a solemn determination that, no mat- 



A HEROIC BUSINESS CAREER. ii 

ter what was the result, he would live up to 
his Christianity in all the business engage- 
ments of his life, and registered a vow that 
if the time ever came when he either had to 
lose business or sacrifice his Christian prin- 
ciple, it should be his business and not his 
Christianity that should suffer. 

A testing time came soon enough. One 
of his friends, who was also one of the 
richest young men in the community and 
the best customer he had, came to his shop 
one day and ordered ten poimds of brandy 
drops. The young confectioner did not make 
these, but he ordered them from New York 
by express. Before they came, however, 
his conscience began to trouble him. Was 
he doing right in having a hand in selling 
these brandy candies? He knew that the 
young man who had ordered them would 
give them out among the young men and 
the young women of his acquaintance, and 
it might be that more than one would get 
their first taste of intoxicating drink in that 
way, and no one could tell what sad result 
would come of it. On the other hand, if he 



12 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

refused to accommodate his customer, he 
would no doubt lose his friendship and his 
trade, and only drive him to some one else 
who would procure the desired confections 
for him. He could not sleep that night, and 
the more he thought about it the more thor- 
oughly convinced he became that it was not 
a Christian thing to in any way have part in 
putting temptation in the path of another. 
Having come to this conclusion, he acted 
with promptness and firmness. When the 
brandy drops came he immediately expressed 
them back to the wholesale firm in New 
York, and when the young man came after 
them he frankly told him what he had done, 
and why. As he expected, the yoUng man 
was very angry, and was full of contempt 
for him on account of what he called his 
" fanatical notions." 

That was the parting of the ways for these 
two young men. The poor young confec- 
tioner that stood by his principles has grown 
to be a wealthy and honored citizen, while 
the rich young tippler has long since gone 
to a dishonored grave, eaten up by his sinful 



A HEROIC BUSINESS CAREER. 13 

lusts and appetites, as Plerod was eaten of 
worms. 

Our young liero maintained the same at- 
titude as his business enlarged and broad- 
ened. He beeame after a while a caterer, 
and on his business cards, through all the 
years, he has kept the plain and simple state- 
ment that not only will no wines and liquors 
be furnished by him, but he will not permit 
his employees to serve at a feast or dinner 
where they are used. He has many times 
lost thousands of dollars by this fidelity to 
principle, but it has never tempted him to 
swerve for a moment, and, perhaps, in the 
long run, he has gained by it even finan- 
cially. His splendid fidelity to principle has 
been a great object lesson to all who have 
known him, and has helped by example and 
influence to banish the punch bowl and the 
wineglass from many a wedding feast and 
public dinner in that part of the country. 

When the great Poughkeepsie railroad 
bridge was nearing completion a dinner was 
given to the railroad men of the country at 
that place. Our friend, as the leading 



14 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

caterer of the region, was secured for the oc- 
casion. But as the time drew near and he 
found they intended to use wines he refused 
absohitely to have anything- to do with it, 
and so steadfastly did he abide by his pur- 
pose that the wines were banished. 

A magnificent public park in Poughkeep- 
sie, an Old Ladies' Home building, and many 
other monuments of his philanthropy bear 
witness that his generosity is as conspicuous 
a trait as his heroic devotion to principle. 

Who can tell how wide is the influence for 
good which such a business man spreads 
through the community? Like Peter's heal- 
ing shadow, on whomsoever the influence of 
such a man falls, its effect is to strengthen 
him in purity and righteousness of life. All 
honor to Hon. William W. Smith, the heroic 
business man of Poughkeepsie ! 



SHEPHERDESS OF THE BLACK SHEEP. 15 



11. 

The Shepherdess of the Black Sheep. 

EVERY now and again the world is bright- 
ened by some man or woman with a 
soul daring enough to believe that when 
heaven's Best came down to save earth's 




Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth. 

worst it was intended that we should follow 
this example in our own lives. 



i6 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

One of the heroines of this diviner sort 
who is helping to sweeten the sorrow of our 
own time is Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth. 
Mrs. Booth is a connoisseur, so to speak, of 
"black sheep." If there are any so bad 
that they are unlovable to the multitude of 
good people, and forgotten and neglected 
because of their sins, Mrs. Booth is likely to 
seek them out, with a soul overflowing with 
delight at the chance to do them good. In- 
stead of giving up as hopeless the prisoners 
in our jails and penitentiaries she, inspired 
by the optimism of Jesus Christ, has set her- 
self not only to carry the Gospel to them 
while in prison, but to establish homes where 
they may find a few days of Christian sym- 
pathy after their release and from which they 
may go with kindly encouragement and hope 
to some honest employment. 

On May 24, 1896, Mrs. Booth held a meet- 
ing in Sing Sing, giving one of her heart- 
warming talks, and at the after-service asked 
those who desired to seek salvation to rise 
to their feet. Over fifty responded to this 
appeal. Among those who rose was a young 



SHEPHERDESS OF THE BLACK SHEEP. 17 

German, who was deeply touched, and re- 
solved to lead a clean life in the future. It 
was some two months afterward that he 
was released from prison and came direct to 
New York city. He had a little money, 
which he had earned while in prison, and 
he determined that he would look for work, 
and after starting in life afresh would come 
to Mrs. Booth and show her how he had ful- 
filled his promise. He went to Jersey City 
and succeeded in getting employment. At 
the end of two weeks, when he received his 
pay, he invested all his money in such ar- 
ticles of clothing as he needed, leaving barely 
enough to live on during the following week. 
But when 'he went to work on Monday he 
found that on account of "hard times" he 
was to be laid off. This was a great disap- 
pointment. He searched for work for many 
weeks, living on almost nothing, still keep- 
ing up a brave heart and being honest, until 
he o-ot down to his last cent and was a 
pauper in the streets. Of course he thought 
of Mrs. Booth, "his friend," but, as he told 
her afterward, he could not make up his 



i8 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

mind to come to her after he had gotten so 
low. For days he tramped the streets, sleep- 
ing on the wharves and steering clear of the 
police, and at last one night started down 
the Bowery, hardly knowing what took him 
there. He had not gone very far when he 
came to the Volunteers' Bowery Post, in the 
window of which was a picture emblematic 
of " Hope." This picture represents a man 
in stripes sitting in his prison cell, with a 
look of despair on his face, while in the 
background stand two angels, one personat- 
ing " Hope " and the other " Love." The 
moment his eye rested on the picture he 
recognized it, and said, ' ' That is Mrs. Booth's 
picture." He gazed at it for a while, and 
all the words that Mrs, Booth had spoken in 
the prison chapel came back to him — how 
they must always feel that .she was their 
friend. He made up his mind to go and 
see her. The following morning he went to 
the headquarters of the Volunteers, told his 
story, and had a talk with Mrs. Booth. 
"Hope Hall "(Mrs. Booth's home for dis- 
charged prisoners) was not then formally 



SHEPHERDESS OF THE BLACK SHEEP. 19 

opened, but he, being a painter, was set to 
work painting its interior. He worked faith- 
fully, and shortly after, when officers were 
sent to take charge of the Home, was con- 
verted and has led a beautiful Christian 
life ever since. He is now regularly em- 
ployed in a first-class position in New York 
city. When he went out to seek his present 
employment he went with a good recom- 
mendation from Mrs. Booth. After having 
been gone for some little time he returned 
to the office, where Captain Hughes, Mrs. 
Booth's private secretary, was sitting at her 
desk. The young lady asked him if he had 
been successful, yet such a question was 
scarcely necessary. He grasped her hand, 
and said, "O, yes; I've got work!" She 
immediately asked him what his wages 
were, and, with a happy laugh, he answered, 
"Why, Captain, I was so glad to get the 
work I did not stop to ask." 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



A 



III. 
Capturing a Lawyer. 
FEW years since, when a pastor in Boston, 
Mass., I became very much interested in 
a young man who was just finishing his 




Rev. Wm. N. Brewster. 



theological course in the Boston University. 
The young fellow was so enthusiastic, so 



CAPTURING A LAWYER. 21 

optimistic, so bubbling over with faith in 
God and love for men, and so sure that God 
was stronger than the devil, that it was a 
delight to have fellowshij^ with him. AVhen 
his theological course was completed he went 
to Cincinnati, to begin his ministry in a plain 
little chapel in one of the suburbs of that 
city. There were few members in his little 
church, and all of them were poor. The 
outlook would have been very unpromising 
to many young college men, but to my friend 
the difficulties in the way only inspired him 
to greater exertion. I shall never forget the 
first letter I had from him after he reached 
the field. It ran like this : 

" My Dear Friend: 

" I am on the ground at last, and am be- 
ginning to get the lay of the land. It seems 
good after being in school so long to feel 
that at last you are on the track and have a 
fair chance at the race. I imagine that I 
feel like a hound that has been chafing in 
his kennel for a long time and is at last 
turned loose, with the game in sight. The 
ministry never seemed so precious andsplen- 



22 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

did to me as now, and, by the help of God, 
I am determined to win victory for my 
Master. I have been looking over my field 
here, and am strangely impressed that my 
success in getting a strong hold on this com- 
munity depends on my capturing for the 
Lord the most prominent man there is in this 
part of the city. The most widely-known 
man here, and the man of most influence, is 
Judge , a distinguished lawyer of Cin- 
cinnati. Indeed, he is the most famous 
criminal lawyer in this part of the country. 
He has the reputation of being a hardened, 
sinful man, and there is not the slightest 
evidence to show that he has a thought of 
becoming a Christian. Yet I feel that I must 
win him, and do it at once. You may think 
I am foolish about this, and I am astonished 
at myself, but, after all, God is as willing to 
save him as he is to save anyone else, and I 
believe he is as willing to help me secure 
this man's conversion as he was to help Paul 
and Silas with the jailer at Philippi. Any- 
how, I am in for this one thing, day and 
night, and scarcely think of anything else. 

" Pray for me as you never did before, for 
this means everything to me. If God gives 
me this man in answer to my work and 
prayer at the very beginning of my ministry, 



CAPTURING A LAWYER. 23 

I shall feel that everything is possible after 
that." 

This letter impressed me deeply. The 
holy audacity of the man amazed me, and 
I awaited future developments with most 
prayerful interest. 

About ten days later I received a second 
letter, in which were these lines : 

" I could stand it no longer, and so have 

been to see Judge . I just opened my 

heart and told him all about it. I told him 
I could hardly sleep or eat on his account, 
but was praying for him all the time. Every- 
thing I intended to say went out of my head, 
and I just blundered on, trying to tell him 
how much he owed the Lord and what a 
great chance there was for him to change the 
whole community by swinging about and 
giving his heart to Christ. 

" He was the most astonished-lookmg 
man I ever saw. He looked at me at first 
like you have seen a great St. Bernard dog 
look at a young puppy that runs up to him 
on the street. Still, he was not offended, 
but treated me kindly, and I believe God 
will give him to me yet." 



24 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

What a battle royal for a human soul ! On 
one hand, the most successful criminal law- 
yer of the Ohio River Valley — a middle- 
aged man, hedged about by evil associations 
and chained by evil habits — on the other 
hand this ruddy young David with his sling. 

I did not hear from the battlefield again 
for three or four weeks, and was becoming 
anxious, when one morning I received a let- 
ter which began : 

" ' Thanks be to God who giveth us the 
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ! ' 

Judge sent for me to come and pray 

with him last night. He was under deep 
conviction, and was mourning over his sins. 
He told me he had not had a moment's rest 
since the day I first came to see him and told 
him I was praying for him. I prayed over 
him and cried over him, and I believe he is 
happily converted to the Lord Jesus Christ, 
He will make a public confession in the 
church, and he and his wife will at once 
unite with it. What a glorious day that will 
be for this community! My joy is beyond 
words. I never can believe anything too 
hard for God aofain." 



CAPTURING A LAWYER. 25 

Judge became a power for good, and 

was influential on many a platform in giving 
his testimony for Christ. 

I am sure you will not be astonished after 
this incident to know that this heroic youth 
is one of the most successful evangelistic 
missionaries in China, where, in the popu- 
lous Hing-hua district, Rev. William X. 
Brewster has led literally hundreds of the 
natives to the foot of the cross. 



26 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



IV. 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's First Speech. 

ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS— or at 
least that was her name before the 
"Burglar" had moved "Paradise" — 
who has led many of us along the glorified 




Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. 

path between the "Gates" and filled us 
with a noble ambition to lead "A Singular 
Life," has put the reading world under a 



ELIZABETH S. PHELPS'S FIRST SPEECH. 27 

new debt of gratitude by publishing, through 
magazine and book, some Chapter's from a 
Life, and that life her own. 

One of the most interesting sketches tells 
of a day when she was riding through the 
streets of Gloucester, where " The Old 
Maid's Paradise " was established, when, 
noting an excited throng of angrv men and 
women, she inquired of two women talking 
together at the street side what had hap- 
pened. 

The women looked at her rather scorn- 
fully at first, and one made answer : "Haven't 

you heard? Why, it happened in 's 

rumshop." After a moment's pause the 
woman continued: "There's a man mur- 
dered there. He's just dead. Him and this 
other feller had words, and he drove a knife 
into him and out again three times. He's 
stone dead, layin' there on the floor. vSee 
the men folks crowdin' 'round to look at him I 
If men folks will do such things, they must 
expect such things to happen. I hope they 
won't leave stick nor stone to that place, come 
morn in' !" 



28 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

" Was he a married man? " 

" She lives up the block. And the young 
ones." 

" How many? " 

"Twelve." 

" Has anybody been to see this poor crea- 
ture — the widow? Has any woman gone to 
her? " 

"Hey? (Staring.) I guess not. Not that 
I know of." 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps drove straight to 
the house where the poor, grief-stricken 
woman was wailing in the midst of her 
children. After doing all that she could to 
comfort her she went back home with a new 
conception of the horrors that are caused by 
the liquor traffic. She says herself of this 
transformation : ' ' All my traditions went 
down and my common sense and human 
heart came up. From that day ' I asked no 
questions, I had no replies,' but gave my 
sympathy without paltry hesitation to the 
work done by the women of America for the 
salvation of men endangered or ruined by 
the liquor habit." 



ELIZABETH S. PHELPS'S FIRST SPEECH. 29 

After thinking the matter over she came 
to a conclusion most astonishing to all her 
friends — that she would go on the next Sun- 
day and hold services in the rumshop where 
the man had been murdered. All their 
protestations fell on deaf ears, for she had 
made up her mind, and nothing could turn 
her from the new path of duty Providence 
had seemed to make clear. 

She visited the rumseller, and he was 
more than willing to have her use his saloon, 
for he hoped in that way that something of 
the shadow of disgrace which hung over his 
place might be lifted away. 

"You'll say, won't you," pleaded the 
dealer in death, " that this ain't my fault? 
You'll tell 'em it might have happened any- 
where, won't you? Why, it might have 
happened in a church — there's miurders do! 
You'll say so, won't you, ma'am?" 

She did not commit herself as to what the 
substance of her discourse would be, but se- 
cured the services of a lovely, gray-haired 
Christian woman to assist her. Her heart 
came near failing her at the last, and she 



30 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

begged her helper to speak in her place. 
The old lady gently but firmly refused. 

Miss Phelps pleaded with her: "I never 
opened my mouth in a public place in my 
life. I shall drop of stage fright — and think 
of the scene !" 

When the hour arrived the saloon was 
packed, and the overflowing crowd extended 
out into the street. A few women came 
with her to sing, but most of the hearers 
were the kind of men who ordinarily fre- 
quented this saloon and others like it. The 
great red stain in the floor, where the man 
was murdered, was covered from sight by 
the crowd. 

They sang a hymn or two, the new tem- 
perance lecturer read a little from the Bible, 
and then spoke the earnest words that were 
in her heart, and came away. ' ' Those men 
listened to us," says Mrs. Ward, " as if they 
had never heard a message of mercy before 
in all their lives and never might again. I 
remember that some of them hung their 
heads upon their breasts like guilty children, 
and that they looked ashamed and sorry. 



ELIZABETH S. PHELPS'S FIRST SPEECH. 31 

But most of them met us in the eye, and 
drank what we said thirstily." 

That was her first speech, but not her last. 
For this good work went on for three years, 
and many a poor tempted man came to bless 
the woman who had such a strange power 
over him and his fellows. Often she was 
accosted on the street by strange men, who 
would detain her respectfully to say : " I 
hear when you talk to folks they stop drink- 
in'. I wish you'd talk to me !" 



32 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 







V. 
The Peacemaker's Blessing. 

NE of the sweetest of "the blessings" 
in the vSermon on the Mount is the one 
which declares " Blessed are the peace- 




Dr. William I. Fee. 



makers : for they shall be called the children 
of God." There is living- in Ohio a minister 



THE PEACEMAKER'S BLESSING. 33 

of the gospel of peace whose whole life has 
been one long work of peacemaking, not only 
between sinful souls and their God, but be- 
tween man and his fellow. It would per- 
haps be no exaggeration to say that for the 
past fifty years the most successful pastor in 
winning souls in the Ohio River Valley is 
Rev, Dr. William I. Fee, whose name is full 
of fragrance throughout large parts of Ken- 
tucky, West Virginia, and Ohio. For con- 
siderably over half a century he has been 
constantly preaching the Gospel, and God 
has given him wonderful revivals every 
year. 

He has been one of the most modest and 
retiring of men through it all, but has at last 
been persuaded to publish a volume, entitled 
Bringing the S/ica-c'cs, in which are gathered 
many striking incidents of his noble and 
useful life. But turning away from many 
stories more notable in some ways, I have 
found this picture of the peacemaker to be 
very charming in my own eyes : 

There was a local preacher and a class 

leader who had disagreed about some trivial 
3 



34 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

matter. For years they did not fellowship 
with each other. Their friends became in- 
volved in their quarrel, and the entire circuit 
suffered in consequence. Several efforts 
had been made to settle the difficulty, but in 
vain. Dr. Fee saw that nothing could so 
insure the success of their revival efforts 
at the annual camp meeting on which they 
were entering as the making of peace be- 
tween these brethren. So getting them to- 
gether on the camp ground, he said, " Let us 
go to the woods." 

When they reached a secluded place he 
asked them to kneel with him in prayer, and 
he prayed earnestly that this difficulty might 
be settled and they again become friends. 
He told them of the injury which was being 
done by this unfortunate affair, and the fear- ^ 
ful responsibility which was upon them. 
He said to the local preacher, " Brother W., 
will you state this case, just as you under- 
stand it, as fairly as possible ? " 

He did so in a very candid manner. 

Addressing his opponent. Dr. Fee said, 
"Brother P., will you state your case "fairly, 



THE PEACEMAKER'S BLESSING. 35 

just as you understand it, with your matters 
of grievance, whatever they may be? " 

He, with equal fairness, presented his 
case. 

" Now," said Dr. Fee, pleasantly, " I ask 
each of you one question. Brother W., do 
you believe Brother P. to be an honest, 
truthful man, and that he would not will- 
fully tell a falsehood? " 

He said, " I do." 

" Brother P., do you believe Brother W. 
is an honest man, and that he would not 
tell, willfully, a known falsehood? " 

Said he, " I believe he would not." 

Then said Dr. Fee, "Brother W., you 
have stated your grievances ; Brother P. has 
stated his. You have agreed to regard each 
other as honest and truthful men. If this 
be true, is there anything between you which 
ought to keep you apart, and which will jus- 
tify you in involving almost an entire church 
in a personal difficulty? " 

They both said with some hesitanc}', 
" There is not." 

"Are you mutually willing, before God, 



36 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

to vSettle this difficulty here and now to the 
best of your ability? " 

Each of them replied, " We are." 

Dr. Fee said, " Let us pray." 

They kneeled down where they were, on 
the leaves which covered the earth. The 
doctor prayed, and then asked Brother W. 
to pray. After clearing his throat a good 
while, he began. His prayer was not very 
fervent. Then he called on Brother P., and 
he had but little spirit of prayer. But this 
persistent peacemaker did not give up, but 
after praying again himself, called on each 
of them, one after the other, to pray again. 
They did so, and were melted into tears. 
They arose. 

" Now, brethren," said the doctor, " sup- 
pose you shake hands with each other and 
bury this difficulty forever." 

Brother W. extended his hand to Brother 
P., who received it, but each of them looked 
away from the other. Said the doctor, 
" That will never do! Look each other in 
the face, and, with a ' God bless you ! ' give 
each other a hearty shake." 



THE PEACEMAKER'S BLESSING. 37 

They did so, and in a little while their 
arms were around each other and they were 
wonderfully blessed. When they returned 
to the camp ground there w^as great rejoi- 
cing among the people. This reconciliation 
was the beginning of a glorious revival. 



38 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 




VI. 

Tunneling for a Soul. 

T has been my privi- 
lege to ride in a rail- 
way train through the 
four greatest tunnels 
in the world : the 
MuUin tunnel, on the 
Northern Pacific 
Railroad in Montana; the Hoosac tunnel in 
Massachusetts; through Mt. Cenis tunnel in 
Italy ; and, greatest of all, through that mar- 
vel of encjineerino: which hurls a train sheer 
through the St. Gothard Alps, with six thou- 
sand feet of snow and ice above it. 

But an infinitely more interesting and sig- 
nificant tunnel than either of these is the 
tunnel from Helen Keller's finger tips, along 
the line of her nerve, back into the brain 
and heart that only a few years ago were 
imprisoned in an Egypt-like darkness. 

Not long since, on opening a daily paper, 
I saw a series of headlines that caused the 



TUNNELING FOR A SOUL. 39 

tears to run down my cheeks, so profoundly 
were my emotions stirred. The headlines an- 
nounced that Helen Keller had, the day be- 
fore, virtually passed the preliminary exam- 
ination for entrance to Radcliffe College, in 
Cambridge, Llass. Perhaps I felt more 
keenly on the subject because of the fact 
that I was living in South Boston when 
Helen Keller first came there from Alabama 
for training under the protection of the Per- 
kins Institution for the Blind, and had been 
from the first deeply interested in the brave 
and self-denying efforts put forth to rescue 
her from her lonely bondage. 

Young people who have all their senses, 
and yet have found their preparation for 
college fraught with difficulties sufficient to 
test their best energy and endurance, will 
stand appalled before one who only a few 
years ago was wrapped about by a double- 
walled prison. Think of it ! Eyes and ears 
both closed. Two of the ordinary windows 
of life shut up and closely blinded, Only 
one possible means of communication, and 
that the nerve in the fingertip. Back along 



40 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



that nerve went the patient, persevering ef- 
fort of the teacher, knocking at the cell door 
of an imprisoned soul. There was a soul 
there well worth tunneling for. With en- 




\ 



Helen Keller. 

From a photograph by A. Marshall, Boston. 

thusiasm and gladness it awoke to the new 

knowledge and liberty that were offered it. 

And now, a few years later, so heroically 

has this liberated soul set herself to work to 



TUNNELING FOR A SOUL. 41 

conquer all obstacles that we have a young 
girl whose acquirements would be more than 
brilliant if no window of the soul had ever 
been closed against her. 

If she is near enough to anyone to put her 
delicate finger tips on the lips, she receives 
with accuracy everything spoken to her, and 
replies in beautiful language and in softly 
modulated tones, the sounds of which she 
herself never hears. 

She reaches forth after all knowledge pos- 
sible for mortals to know. She is tireless in 
her explorations, and gives promise of an 
intellectual triumph that shall be the marvel 
of our time. Surely, all things considered, 
hers is the palm for heroism among all 
the young women of the present generation. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman sings a beau- 
tiful ode to Helen Keller : 



Mute, sightless visitant, 

From what uncharted world 
Hast voyaged into life's wide sea 
With guidance scant ? 

As if some bark mysteriously 
Should hither glide with spars aslant 
And sails all furled. 



42 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

But Helen Keller has not been willing to 
leave the sails furled ; she has aroused her- 
self to meet every breeze that offered, until, 
in spite of all obstacles, she is entering her 
young womanhood with all sails spread to 
the winds of life. 

The Christian religion, with its love and 
trust and hope, has come to Helen Keller's 
mind and heart as naturally as the love of 
mother or friends. To great-souled Phillips 
Brooks was granted the rare privilege, a few 
years since, of answering the questions of 
her inquiring mind in regard to spiritual 
things. The correspondence, which was 
published at the time, was one of great in- 
teresto 

If it is a matter of so much importance to 
carry the light of intelligence and love into 
one human mind and heart that have been 
shut about by imprisoning walls, how grand 
is the opportunity of the Christian Church to 
carry the Bible, and the civilization that fol- 
lows in its wake, to the millions in heathen 
lands who are shut in by the dark walls of 
their ignorance and superstition ! 



THE PILOTS CONVERSION. 



43 



VII. 
The Pilot's Conversion. 

THERE is no mure interesting character 
about any of our great seaboard cities 
than the ocean pilot. He goes out with 
every passenger steamer, and the last fond 




Captain Josiah Johnson. 

notes and postal cards sent back to the loved 
ones left behind are committed to his care. 



44 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

When he drops over the deck's side into his 
little boat, and waves his grave farewell, 
all on board feel that they have cut loose 
from home and are committed for weal or 
woe to the mysterious paths of the sea. 

No one is so earnestly looked for by both 
captain and passengers on an incoming 
steamship as the pilot, who brings with him 
news from the great busy world, from com- 
munication with which the steamer has for 
many days and nights been cut off. He is 
the forerunner and prophecy of the harbor 
not yet in sight ; an assurance that the voy- 
age is over, its dangers are passed, and the 
desired haven will be soon at hand. 

Of all the pilots on the Atlantic coast the 
Sandy Hook pilots are of most interest, be- 
cause of the multitude of ships that come 
and go to and from New York Harbor. 
There are among the vSandy Hook pilots two 
men who began their apprenticeship over a 
half a century ago, in 1846. One of these 
is Captain Josiah Johnson, of Brooklyn, 
who, after five years' apprenticeship, was 
licensed a pilot in 185 1, and has been in 



THE PILOTS CONVERSION. 45 

constant service, going and coming past 
Sandy Hook, for forty-six years. 

Captain Johnson came to the sea by in- 
heritance, as his father served on the old 
frigate Constitution in the War of 18 12. In 
spite of his long term of service he carries 
his sixty-five years with the air of a victor, 
and his great, stalwart frame and bronzed 
face and sturdy step are wonderfully youth- 
ful, although his hair and beard are white 
as snow. 

This veteran pilot has, naturally, in his 
half-century of service, been in many a gale 
and faced bitter storms. Three men in as 
many awful hours of danger have been swept 
overboard from the deck by his side to their 
death. Many a schooner, disabled, his pilot- 
boat has rescued from the teeth of the 
storm, and captain and crew and owner have 
owed life and property to his skill and cour- 
age. Numerous have been the wrecks from 
which, in the nick of time, he has taken the 
sailor who had lost hope and expected to 
perish. Many a time Captain Johnson and 
his crew on their pilot-boat have been out 



46 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

for days in the bitter cold of a winter's 
storm, until their clothing was sheathed in 
ice, so that when they were at last permitted 
to remove it, it would stand upright like an 
iron frame. Yet on such nights and in such 
storms he has hailed hundreds of ships and 
guided them safely into the harbor without 
the loss of a single charge committed to his 
care in his lifetime of service. 

My acquaintance w^ith Captain Johnson, 
however, did not begin upon the sea, but in 
an evangelistic service in Brooklyn held tm- 
der the leadership of Dr. J. Wilbur Chap- 
man, of Philadelphia. I noticed a large, 
fine-looking man sitting in the audience, 
and watched the eagerness with which he 
seemed to listen to the Gospel message, 
and was not surprised when the invitation 
to seek Christ was given that his strong 
hand was uplifted. Later, in the inquiry 
room, I had the privilege of conversation 
with him, and saw how, with the simplic- 
ity of a little child, he yielded his heart 
to the vSaviour, and was most happily con- 
verted. It was one of the greatest joys of 



THE PILOT'S CONVERSION. 47 

the meetings, after that, to watch the cap- 
tain's broad, weather-beaten face, which 
beamed with ' ' a light that never was on sea 
or land," as he listened to the gracious offers 
of mercy and the rich promises of God's word. 

One night he came to me at the close of 
the evening service and told me that he 
would have to go the next day, on his pilot- 
boat, to meet an incoming vessel, and so 
would be absent from the meetings. As he 
grasped my hand to say good-bye his eyes 
filled with happy tears, and he exclaimed : 
* ' It will be the happiest trip I have ever made 
past Sandy Hook; for this will be the first 
time that the Great Pilot will be consciously 
present with me." 

Thank God, we may all have the Great 
Pilot with us ! 

" Slacken no sail, brother, 

At inlet or island, 
Straight by the compass steer, 

Straight for the highland. 

" Set thy sail carefully, 

Darkness is round thee, 
Sleer thy course steadily, 

Quicksands may ground thee. 



48 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

" Fear not the darkness, 
Dread not the night, 

God's word is tliy compass, 
Christ is thy light. 

" Crowd all thy canvas on ! 

Out through the foam ! 
It soon will be morning 

And heaven be thy home." 



THE MOTHER OF "BEN HUR." 49 



VIII. 
The Mother of "Ben Hur." 

ONE of the most queenly of living women 
to-day is Mrs. Zerekla G. Wallace, of 
Indiana, the widow of ex-Governor 
David Wallace, of that State, and the noble 
woman whose fidelity as a stepmother — 
giving more than a mother's usual devotion 
and tenderness — reared Lew Wallace to be 
a distingiiished general in the War of the 
Rebellion, afterward Minister to Turkey, 
and, greater than all, to have the qualities 
of mind and heart that could produce Ben 
Hur. This noble woman not only reared to 
honorable fame her three stepsons, but also 
six children of her own, and grandchildren 
have kept her heart young in later 3'ears. 
She exemplifies the "new woman" who 
is yet to bless the world — a woman so laro-e- 
minded and broad-hearted as to keep a con- 
stant interest in public affairs without in any 
way losing the gentleness and refinement of 
her womanhood. 



so HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

It is said of Mrs. Wallace that when her 
husband became governor of his State she, 
by virtue of her position and her rare men- 




Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace. 



tal qualities, might have been what is known 
as a " leader" in social circles, but her soul 
was too great to be satisfied with the little 
round of social ceremonies and vanities ; she 



THE MOTHER OF -'BEN HUR." 51 

cared for society only as she found in it men 
and women of grand ideas and heroic pur- 
pose. Her husband was a man of fine lit- 
erary culture, and together they enjoyed 
every new book, every speech or sermon, 
that came in their way. In this way their 
evenings at home were almost ideal in their 
domestic beauty. When the babies were 
put to bed Governor Wallace would read to 
her the latest political speech or newest book, 
which they would discuss with the zest of 
professional critics, Everything Governor 
Wallace wrote — speech, essa5% or argument 
— was submitted to her for criticism or 
approval. Though she knew nothing of 
equity as taught in the books, he compli- 
mented her by saying that her unerring 
vsense of justice at once lighted upon any de- 
fect or discrepancy in jurisprudence, while 
her fine literary taste was invaluable in re- 
gard to rhetorical symmetr3^ As her step- 
sons grew older she read law with them. 
In that way she not only kept in splendid 
fellowship with their young hearts, but be- 
came one of the best educated women in the 



52 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

science of jurisprudence in tlie country. 
Such a home picture realizes Tennyson's 
poetic vision : 

Two heads in council; two beside the hearth; 

Two in the tangled business of the world ; 

Two in the liberal offices of life; 

Two plummets dropped for one to sound the abyss 

Of science and the secrets of the mind. 

In the long years liker must they grow ; 

The man be more of woman, she of man. 

He gain in moral height, nor lose 

The wrestling thews that throw the world. 

She, mental breadth, nor fail in chikhvard care, 

Till at the last she set herself to him 

Lii<e perfect music unto noblest words ; 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to man. 

Then reigns the world's great bridals, chaste and 

calm. 
Then springs the crowning race of human kind. 

Mrs. Wallace is, as we would expect, a 
woman of the largest charity and forbear- 
ance. Frances Willard relates that when, 
in 1874, the Crusade clans gathered in Cleve- 
land for the organization of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, Mrs, Wallace 
was nominated as chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Resolutions. Miss Willard, not 
yet knowing Mrs. Wallace, moved that the 
name of Mother Stewart, who had been so 



THE MOTHER OF "BEN HUR." 53 

closely identified with the Crusade, should 
be substituted in her place. Immediately 
after Miss Willard went to Mrs. Wallace, 
to whom she had never spoken as yet, to 
explain her action. That great-hearted 
woman grasped her hand warmly, and 
said, "When you know me better, my 
friend, you will discover that in this sacred 
cause I have lost sight of all personal con- 
siderations." What a magnanimous and chiv- 
alrous heart was disclosed in that utterance ! 

One of the most splendid tributes ever 
given to any woman was paid to Mrs. Wal- 
lace by her stepson, General Lew Wallace, 
on the occasion of their first meeting after 
his immortal book, Ben Hur, had been pub- 
lished. He asked her for her opinion on the 
book. 

She replied, " O, my son, it is a nonesuch 
of a story, but how did you ever invent that 
magnificent character, the Mother? " 

"Why, you dear, simple heart," he an- 
swered, with a kiss, "how could you fail to 
know that the original of that picture is 
vour own blessed self? " 



54 HEROIC PERSOxNALITIES. 



IX. 
Diaz — The Apostle of Cuba. 

ONE of the most heroic souls that has come 
to the front in connection with the 
Cuban insurrection against Spain is 
Diaz, the devoted Baptist minister, who, by 
his unflagging energy, marvelous self-sac- 
rifice, and splendid ability as a preacher, has 
gathered about him in the city of Havana a 
church of nearly twenty-five hundred mem- 
bers and a congregation of eight thousand 
souls. 

In Clarendon vStreet Baptist Church, Bos- 
ton, about six years ago, he told the story of 
his conversion and the development of his 
work as a minister. When he was converted 
he immediately commenced his labors in his 
own family. They were a.stonished and 
troubled to hear him talking of Christ, the 
Bible, and vSalvation, and were greatly op- 
posed to it, his mother refusing to listen to 
him. Every member of the family was 
against him, with the exception of a little 



DIAZ— THE APOSTLE OF CUBA. 55 

four-year-old sister, who, after hearing of 
Christ, said, "I like that man, and will love 
him." His mother was a Roman Catholie, 




Dr. Alberto J. Diaz. 



and very bitter against what he said. She 
called him a Protestant, a heretic, a Jew. 
She said, "I will not speak to you if you do 
not come back to the church and the religion 
I taught you." He tried to tell her about 



56 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Christ and liis word, but she would not listen 
to him; all she would say was, "If you are 
my son and love me, 3'ou will leave that re- 
ligion and come back to the Catholic Church." 
She knew very well that he loved her, and 
what she said troubled him greatl}'. She 
would not speak to him, though they lived 
in the same house, for months. He trusted 
in the Lord, however, and praj'ed constantly 
for her conversion. 

He was very much surprised one evening 
to see her come in and take a seat in the 
meeting. Her presence disturbed him, as 
he thought she had come to reprove him be- 
fore the people, but, mastering his feelings, 
he preached his usual sermon and then gave 
the invitation to those who wished to become 
members to stand up. His mother was one 
of the four who arose. Now, he thought, 
surely she intended to speak to him. Three 
of the people stood on his right ; his mother 
was on his left. Not knowing what she would 
do, he turned and began to examine the 
other three, hoping she would keep silent 
and go awa}'. 



DIAZ— THE APOSTLE OF CUBA. 57 

He was thus intently engaged when one 
of the people said, "Mr. Diaz, there is your 
mother standing over there ; why don't you 
speak to her? " 

Turning to her, he said, "Well, mother, 
what are you doing here? " 

"Alberto," said she, "don't you want me 
in your church? " 

"Yes, mother, we w\ant you if you are 
ready to receive the Lord Jesus Christ ; but 
how is it that you have changed? " he asked, 
in great surprise. 

"Through the Lord Jesus Christ, whom I 
have found in 3'our Bible?" she answered. 

Then she turned to the people and told of 
the trouble they had had ; how she had not 
spoken to her son fen- so long a time, but 
when she had read her Bible and found the 
way to salvation she could no longer resist 
coming and joining them. 

Diaz says : "When my mother was in my 
own hands, and I was about to immerse her, 
all the words that my tongue would give ut- 
terance to were, 'Lord Jesus, this is my 
mother; have mercy.'" 



58 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

After his mother came to the light his 
greatest anxiety was for the conversion of 
his father. He was a man of science, who, 
absorbed in his studies, thought, like many 
others, that religion was something good 
enough for women and children, but nothing 
for a man to have anything to do with. 

The son approached him one day with 
the Bible and said, "Father, don't 3'ou want 
to read this book?" 

"No," said he, "that book is too old. I 
want something new." 

Talking with his mother about it, she 
asked, "Do you think, Alberto, that if father 
reads the Bible, he will be converted?" 

"Yes," said the young preacher; "if we 
can only get him to read the Bible, he will 
soon be converted." 

"Then I will make him read the Bible," 
she exclaimed. So in about three or four 
days, when Sunday came, she went to him. 
"Father, won't you please read those three 
or four verses for me ? I am in a great hurry, 
and I want to know my lesson before I go to 
Sunday school," she said. 



DIAZ— THE APOSTLE OF CUBA. 59 

The old scientist was very devoted to his 
wife, and so he took her Bible and read the 
verses she had pointed out to him. Under 
various pretexts she kept him reading the 
Bible for her. Early one morning, a little 
while later, young Diaz awoke, and seeing 
a light in the next room, thoup'ht some one 
was sick, and going to see what was the mat- 
ter, was so surprised that he could not speak. 
There sat his father reading the Bible at 
four o'clock in the morning. He said to him, 
"Father, what have you been doing here? " 

"O, I have been reading this book," he 
answered; "what time is it? " 

"Four o'clock," replied the young man. 

"Four o'clock ! No ; it cannot be more than 
eleven." 

But the surprised and delighted son told 
him it was really four o'clock, and asked how 
he liked the book. 

"I like this book," said the old man, "and 
will go with you next Sunday." 

He went to the church on the following 
Sunday, was happily converted to Christ, and 
entered upon a joyous Christian life. 



6o 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



F 



X. 

The Heroine of Alaska. 
IFTEEN years ago I was on board a 
train on what was then the only rail- 
road in western Washington, making 



/ 




Mrs. A. R. McFarland. 



the journey from Portland, Ore., to the new 
and straggling village which has since grown 



THE HEROINE OF ALASKA. 6i 

into the ambitious young city of Tacoma. 
It was a slow train, for the roadbed was 
new, but the tedious hours lost their weari- 
ness to me after making the acquaintance 
of one of my fellow-passengers who was on 
her way back to Alaska to take up her mis- 
sion work among the Indians. 

My new acquaintance was Mrs. A. R. 
McFarland, who had gone to Alaska four 
years earlier and devoted herself to the sav- 
ing of the young girls in that far-off land. 
For more than a year this lady, delicately 
reared and cultured, fitted to enjoy the re- 
finements of society, was the only white 
woman in Alaska Territory, because she be- 
lieved it to be her duty and esteemed it her 
privilege to teach her ignorant heathen sis- 
ters of the North the truths of that Gospel 
which has lifted the burden from woman's 
shoulders in every land where it has been 
carried. I shall never forget the thrill of 
admiration and reverence that went through 
my heart as I listened to her story. I felt 
myself to be in the presence of one of the 
world's purest and bravest spirits. 



62 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Mrs. McFarland was not only for a long 
time the only white woman in that vast and 
lawless region, but she was for many months 
the only Protestant missionary in Alaska. 
In those days the i:)eople brought all their 
troubles to her for solution. If they were 
sick, they came to her as a physician ; if 
death came to the wigwam, she was called 
upon to take charge of fhe funeral. When 
there w^as a quarrel in the family, and hus- 
bands and wives were estranged, she was the 
peacemaker to settle their difficulties and 
bring harmony again to the distracted fam- 
ily circle. In their simple property troubles 
she was often judge, lawyer, and jury. 
When feuds sprang up among the small 
tribes she became peacemaker on a larger 
scale and arbiter of their differences. 
When the Christian Indians called a consti- 
tutional convention they paid a noble tribute 
to her goodness and wisdom by electing her 
chairman. She was often called upon to 
interfere in cases of witchcraft ; and when 
the vigilance committee among the miners 
decided to hanof a white man for murder 



THE HEROINE OF ALASKA. 63 

she was sent for to act as liis spiritual ad- 
viser. Her fame followed the coast line to 
the different tribes, and every canoe carried 
some note of praise for the missionary. 
Great chiefs left their homes and came long 
distances that they might enter the school 
of " the woman that loved their people." 

Mrs. McFarland soon found, to her hor- 
ror, that the intelligence and blessing which 
her school, with its teaching and hope, 
brought to the girls only put them in 
greater peyil by making them more attract- 
ive to the wicked and lawless white men who 
inhabited the Alaskan towns. Among a 
people where heathenism crushes out a 
mother's love and makes her willing to sell 
her own daughter, soul and body, for a few 
blankets or a canoe load of provisions, she 
found that her brightest and most promising 
pupils were in the greatest danger. As they 
improved their advantages in the mission 
school it manifested itself in their external 
appearance. They began to comb their hair 
more smoothly, to dress more neatly, and to 
pay more attention to cleanliness in their 



64 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

person; their dull, heavy countenances be- 
gan to light up with intelligence; and as 
their attractions increased white men were 
the more anxious to buy them for base pur- 
poses. Again and again Mrs. McFarland 
had to interfere to save her schoolgirls from 
lives of sin. This necessity was the cause 
of her establishing an industrial training 
school for Indian girls, where they lived to- 
gether in a " Home," into which she gath- 
ered such promising girls as were in danger 
of being sold, and trained them up to be 
the future Christian teachers, wives, and 
mothers of their people. 

The story of how she secured her first 
girl for the " Home " illustrates the fearful 
odds against which she had to contend and 
the splendid heroism of her character. 
Katy, one of the schoolgirls, fourteen years 
of age, who had attended her mission school 
from the commencement, was about to be 
taken up the river and sold to the miners by 
her mother. Mrs. McFarland, hearing of 
it, started to visit the family, who lived on 
an island. When she reached the point 



THE HEROINE OP"' ALASKA. 65 

where she usually crossed the tide was so 
high she could not get over. By signs she 
attracted Katy's attention, who came across 
in a canoe. She was sent back for her 
mother, who came over. There for an hour 
and a half, seated on a rock by the shore, in 
a pouring rain, Mrs. McFarland pleaded 
with the heathen mother until she promised 
not to take Katy away. But the next week 
the mother broke her promise and tried to 
compel her daughter to accompany her to 
the mines^ The canoe was prepared and 
the mother took her seat ; the blankets, pro- 
visions, and younger children were in their 
places, but the little girl lingered on the 
shore, crying and begging most piteously. 
Finally, when they would have put her in 
by force, she straightened herself up and 
said, " Mother, you may kill me, but I will 
not go with you and live a life of sin." vShe 
then ran into the woods and hid. When 
her mother had gone she came out and 
claimed Mrs. McFarland's protection. And 
that was the way the first " Girls' Home " 
in Alaska was started. 



66 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XI. 
The Heroism of Forbearance. 

WE are accustomed to think of the hero 
as one who achieves his victories by 
some positive and aggressive action. 
It is often, however, as heroic to remain si- 
lent under unjust attack as it is to speak in 
the face of opposition. There is a heroism 
that bears as well as a heroism that performs. 
David, on returning from one of his militar}' 
expeditions, declared that the heroism of 
those who remained behind to care for the 
baggage was as deserving as that of those 
who went forth to battle, and in the division 
of the spoils decided, "As his part is that 
goetli down to the battle, so shall his part be 
that tarrieth by the stuff." 

An incident which occurred in the voung 
manhood of Dr. George Lansing Taylor, 
the well-known preacher-poet, illustrates 
this important phase of Christian heroism. 
Dr. Taylor was growing up through boy- 
hood into manhood in Ohio when he became 



THE HEROISM UE EORISEARANCE. 67 

a Christian and joined the church, and, like 
many another, had to suffer from his school- 
mates. The indi'^nities were hard to bear, 




Dr. George Lansing Taylor. 

but he acquired at the very outset of his re- 
ligious experience a spirit of brotherly love, 
even for those who abused him. 

One day he was sharpening a pencil, when 
a book slipped off the de.sk and fell upon 



68 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

the floor. He bent over to pick it up, with 
his large sharp jackknife open in liis hand. 
The boy who was his chief persecutor gave 
his hand a kick which drove the knife into 
it, gashing it fearfully. He shut his hand 
so tightly as to stop the flow of blood. 
Then, rising, with no sign of anything hav- 
ing gone wrong, he asked permission to go 
out. Crossing the street to the house of the 
nearest doctor, he had the wound sewed up 
and dressed. 

The surgeon was very indignant. " Do 
you know," said he, " you have come within 
danger of losing the use of your right hand? 
Who was it that kicked you ? You can make 
him smart for it. His father can be made 
to pay well for such a job as that. Who 
did it?" 

But the plucky young fellow refused to 
tell. He was far more anxious to do the 
boy good than to have him suffer for his 
meanness. And, though he had only to 
mention his name to insure his being se- 
verely punished and probably expelled, he 
never showed by word or look that he re- 



THE HEROISM OF FORBEARANCE. 69 

sented the injury. The love of Christ had 
taken all resentment out of his soul. 

Six or seven years later he had finished 
his college course and had taken the princi- 
palship of a school for the training of teach- 
ers. Among his pupils was the young man, 
though older than himself, who had kicked 
the knife into his hand. The result of young 
Taylor's heroic forbearance had proved the 
wisdom of Paul's advice in his letter to the 
Romans: "Avenge not yourselves, but 
rather give place unto wrath : for it is written, 
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the 
Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed 
him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so 
doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his 
head." This old-time enemy was now a 
most devoted friend ; not one of the schol- 
ars was more faultlessly loyal than the man 
who had once treated him so cruelly, but 
who had been conquered by his forbearance. 
After a time there was a great revival of 
religion among the pupils of the school, and 
many of them were converted. One after- 
noon this same young man asked Dr. Taylor 



70 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

if he might talk with him a few minutes, 
and when they were alone he inquired: 

"Do you remember the time when I 
nearly ruined your right hand by a brutal 
kick?" 

Dr. Taylor replied that he remembered 
the occasion very well. 

" I had no idea of hurting you so badly," 
he continued, " but I hated you because you 
had become a Christian. You never seemed 
to resent it in the least, and now I want to 
tell you that that jackknife has been stick- 
ing in my heart ever since. Lately the Lord 
has been twisting it around until the agony 
has become unbearable. I want you to for- 
give me and ask God to help me out of this 
torment about my meanness." 

And there alone together teacher and 
pupil mingled their prayers at the mercy 
seat, and the years of remorse were ended 
and an era of joy and peace came to the 
young man's soul. From that hour the two 
young men were brothers in the sweetest 
friendship. How rich the reward of his gen- 
tleness and forbearance ! 



STRUGGLING GENIUS. 



71 



T 



XII. 
Struggling Genius. 
HE most interesting- personality that hov- 
ers about the famous old forest and 
palace of Fontainebleau, in France, is 




Rosa Bonheur, the Famous Artist. 



by no means to be selected from the ghosts 
of the dead and historic past ; to many peo- 



72 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

pie it is rather the very live and vigorous 
Rosa Bonheur, who dwells* at the estate of 
By, near the village of INIoret. 

Rosa Bonheur passed her ehildhood in the 
midst of the most exeiting seenes. Her 
little sister was born while the cannon were 
booming in the Revolution of 1830. Just 
before the door of her father's house the 
Royal Guards mounted a piece of artillery, 
which fired on the Place de la Bastille. The 
little Rosa came very near being a victim of 
the Revolution. Her father had climbed up, 
and was standing on the inner bolt of the 
door, in order to peer through the tran.som 
at the fio;ht which was ofoing- on outside. 
When the cannon was fired the shock of the 
explosion shook the door violently, throwing 
him from his position, and he barely escaped 
crushing the child to death in his fall. 

For years after this the tirnes were very 
hard with the painter's family. Her father 
had no work, and, in 1852, to make matters 
worse, the cholera broke out. One of the 
memories of this remarkable woman, that 
she shudders even now to recall, is a vision 



STRUGGLING GENIUS. 73 

of carts upon carts, filled with dead bodies, 
following one after another all day long. 

Her mother died when she was still but a 
little girl and left her in distressing loneli- 
ness. She began to paint very early, and 
while her father was hunting everywhere 
through the city of Paris for students to 
whom he could give drawing lessons she 
worked alone as best she could in a little 
studio in the garret. One night when her 
father returned home after his day's labor 
he found her finishing her first oil painting 
after nature — a handful of cherries. ' ' Why, 
that's fine," he said, "and in future you 
must work seriousl}-." 

Her love for animals was early developed, 
and she would w^ander through the outskirts 
of Paris, among the fields and farms and 
dairies, making studies of cows, sheep, and 
goats. Finally, she found a delightful little 
corner of wild scenery near one of the parks, 
and went and boarded for several months 
with an honest old peasant woman. It is inter- 
esting and encouraging to every struggling 
young person to know that Rosa Bonheur's 



74 HEROIC PERSONALITIES, 

genius by no means relieved her of the 
drudgery of the beginner in any great art. 
Day after day she studied the rapid move- 
ments of animals, eagerly watching the 
shiminer of their coloring in the sun. She 
learned that each cow or horse or dog has an 
individuality of its own as much as has a 
human being, and formed the habit of 
making separate studies of each animal. 

The first picture she exhibited in the 
Salon was in 1845, and was a modest little 
canvas representing rabbits. Two years 
later she won a gold medal. When the 
young girl appeared before the Director of 
Fine Arts, who, with many pleasant com- 
pliments, handed her the medal in the name 
of the king, she, to his great surprise and 
intense amusement, replied, "Thank the 
king very much for me, and deign to add 
that I intend to do better next time." 

In 1893 the distinguished Due d'Aumale, 
whose sad death the whole world regretted 
as one of the tragic results of the terrible 
fire in the Paris Charity Bazar, invited Rosa 
Bonheur to be his guest at Chantilly, the 



STRUGGLING GENIUS. 75 

famous estate which the public-spirited duke 
willed to the people of that land which had 
honored him in his youth and exiled him in 
manhood. The famous painter of "The 
Horse Fair" took with her her first poor 
little medal, stamped with the effigy of Louis 
Philippe, the Due d'Aumale's father. The 
duke was greatly pleased, and smilingly re- 
marked, " It brought you good luck." 

In addition to her undoubted genius, in- 
herited from her father, Rosa Bonheur owes 
her marvelpus success to that patient, honest, 
plodding study which she conscientiously 
gives to all her work, and that unsatisfied 
spirit which is suggested in her answer to 
the Director of Fine Arts, in her girlhood, 
" I intend to do better next time! " The 
world is better for Rosa Bonheur. 



76 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XIII. 

Kindling the Gospel Fire in a Northern 

Wigwam. 

ONE of the mo.st magnetic men with whom 
it has ever been my privilege to con- 
verse is Rev. Egerton Ryerson Young, 
the famous missionary to the Indians of Brit- 
ish Columbia. JNIr. Young is one of those 
dauntless souls who would win success 
and fame in almost any department of life. 
There is no such word as fail in his vocab- 
ulary. "When he undertook to carry the 
Gospel to the Indians in their lonely wig- 
wams in the northern woods he put into the 
work the same inventive genius, indomitable 
]:)urpose, and tireless fidelity that other men 
have put into the building of railroads and 
managing of armies and nations. But back 
of his strong brain and immense energy 
there is a heart full of love for Christ and 
tender sympathy for the poor people to whom 
he carried the glad news of salvation. 

'Mv. Youno- has the art of recounting his 



KINDLING THE GOSPEL FIRE. 



11 



experiences with a peculiar breeziness per- 
taining to the woods where they were en- 
countered. One of his best stories is of a long 



^r.'MtSM^ 




Rev. Egerton Ryerson Young. 

journey which he made into the heart of the 
wilderness in search of a tribe which he had 
not visited before. He made this trip in a 
canoe paddled by two Christian Indians. 
"When they reached the forest encampment 
their welcome was not very cordial. The 



yS HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Indians were soured and saddened; a great 
many of their children having died with 
scarlet fever, which had been brought into 
their land, for the first time, by some white 
traders the year before. With the exception 
of an old conjurer or two, none openly op- 
posed him, but the sullen apathy of the 
people made it very discouraging work to try 
to preach or teach. However, he did the 
best he could, and was resolved that, having 
come so far and suffered so many hardships 
to reach them, he would faithfully deliver 
the message, and leave the results to Him 
who had permitted him to be the first to visit 
that land to tell the story of redeeming love. 

One cold, rainy day a large number of the 
people were crowded into the largest wigwam 
for a talk about the truths in the great Book. 

Mr. Young's faithful Christian canoeists 
aided him all they could by giving personal 
testimony to the blessedness of the great sal- 
vation ; but all seemed in vain. The com- 
pany sat and smoked in sullen indifference. 
When questioned as to their wishes and pur- 
poses all he could get from them was, "As 



KINDLING THE GOSPEL FIRE. 79 

our fathers lived and died so will we." 
Tired out and sad at heart, the missionary 
sat down in quiet communion and breathed 
a prayer for guidance and help in this sore 
perplexity. In his extremity the needed 
assistance came so consciously that he almost 
exulted in the assurance of victory. Spring- 
ing up, he shouted out: "I know where all 
3"our children are who are not among the 
living ! I know, yes, I do most certainlv, 
where all the children are whom death has 
taken in hjs cold grasp from among us, the 
children of the good and of the bad, of the 
whites and of the Indians ; I know where all 
the children are !" 

Great, indeed, was the excitement among 
them. Some of them had their faces well 
shrouded in their blankets as they sat like 
upright mummies in the crowded wigwam. 
But when he uttered these words they 
quickly uncovered their faces and mani- 
fested the most intense interest. vSeeing that 
he had at length got their attention, he went 
on : " Yes, I know where all the children are. 
They have gone from your camp fires and 



8o HEROIC rERSONALlTIES. 

wigwams. The hammocks are empty and 
the little bows and arrows lie idle. ]\Iany of 
your hearts are sad, as you mourn for these 
little ones, whose voices you hear not, and 
who come not at your call. I am so glad 
that the Great Spirit gives mc authorit}' to 
tell you that you may meet your children 
again, and be happy with them forever. But 
you must listen to his words which I bring- 
to you from his great Book, and give him 
ytnir hearts, and love and serve him. There 
is only one way to that beautiful land, where 
Jesus, the Son of the Great Spirit, has gone, 
and into which he takes all the children who 
have died ; and now that you have heard liis 
message and seen his Book you, too, must 
come this way if you would be happy and 
enter therein." 

While he was thus speaking a big, stal- 
wart Indian from the other side of the tent 
sprang up and rushed toward him. Beating 
on his breast, he said: " Alissionary, my 
hcartv is emptv, and I mourn much, for none 
of mv children arc left among the living; 
verv lonclv is mv wio-\vam. I long to see 



KINDLING THE GOSPEL FIRE. 8i 

my children again, and to clasp them in my 
arms. Tell me, missionary, what must I do 
to please the Great Spirit, that I may get to 
that beautiful land, that I may meet my 
children aofain? " Then he sank UDon the 
ground at Mr. Young's feet, his eyes over- 
flowing with tears, and was quickly joined 
by others, who, like him, were broken down 
with grief, and were anxious now for reli- 
gious instruction. To the blessed Book they 
went, and after reading what Jesus had said 
about littlp children, and giving them some 
glimpses of his great love for them, Mr. 
Young told them "the old, old story," as 
simply and lovingly as he could. There was 
no more scoffing or indifference. It was the 
beginning of a blessed work which resulted 
in the winning of nearly the entire tribe to 
a happy experience of the saving love of 
Christ. 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XIV. 
The Heroine of the White Ribbon. 
SHALL never forget my first glimpse of 
Frances Willard, the renowned leader of 
the white ribbon hosts. She was makino- 




Miss Frances E. Willard. 



a tour of the Northwest in company with 
Miss Anna Gordon, her inseparable other 
self. She had come to Portland to attend a 



HEROINE OF THE WHITE RIBBON. 83 

convention, and as I was then pastor at Van- 
couver, Wash., seven miles away, on the 
other side of the Columbia River, I deter- 
mined, if possible, to secure her for a meeting 
the following vSunday night. I wrote her 
that if she would come, I would secure the 
largest hall in the place, and do such pre- 
liminary work as w^ould insure the organiza- 
tion of a local Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union. vShe replied that she had to 
speak at Portland on vSunday morning, but 
if I w^ouldi meet them with a carriage on 
Sunday afternoon, they would come to Van- 
couver and hold the meeting. 

Vancouver w^as at that time, as it is now, 
the military headquarters of the Department 
of the Columbia, and General Nelson A. 
Miles, now at the head of the United States 
Army, was in command. I was on good 
terms with Colonel Morrow, who was in 
command of the local fort at Vancouver, 
and on applying to him secured a govern- 
ment ambulance, four splendid great mules, 
with a uniformed driver and guard of state 
for the occasion. And so on that summer 



84 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Sunday alternoon, fifteen years ago, those 
four mules and the government ambulance 
appeared before jMiss Willard's astonished 
gaze as she sat awaiting us on the piazza of 
a friend's house in Portland. 

I do not believe JNIiss Willard will ever 
forget that ride. It was ver}' dusty and hot, 
and the old ambulance, though a very for- 
midable piece of roadway furniture, was any- 
thing but an easy carriage to ride in. The 
driver was on his mettle and bent upon show- 
ing off his mules, and the time we made 
across the peninsula between the Willamette 
and the Columbia Rivers was a caution. 
Miss Willard and ]\Iiss Gordon adapted them- 
selves to the situation and took it all in good 
part, but I think they were exceedingly 
amused at the whole performance. 

The meeting was a great success. The 
largest hall in the town was packed to the 
last person that could find standing room. 
General Miles presided with great dignity; 
Colonel ]\Iorro\v, Captain Henry Pierce, and 
other army officers, with their wives, and dis- 
tinguished citizens crowded the platform. 



HEROINE OF THE WHITE RIBBON. 85 

Thurston Daniels, since lieutenant governor 
of the State, was one of the ushers. 

Miss Willard was at her best. I have 
heard her many times since, and always 
with admiration, but never when her play- 
ful wit, marvelous pathos, and persuasive 
logic seemed to hold the audience with a 
more profound spell than it did that night. 
At the close of her address a vigorous 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union of 
more than sixty members was organized, 
and both Jvliss Willard and Miss Gordon 
felt amply repaid for the hot, dusty, and 
uncomfortable ride in the government am- 
bulance that Sunday afternoon. 

One of the secrets of Miss Willard's re- 
markable success is her willingness to adapt 
herself to the situation of the hour, and do 
whatever needs to be done at once at what- 
ever personal cost. This spirit is illustrated 
in her work in behalf of the Armenians. 
While the prime ministers and diplomats of 
half a dozen nations were standing about 
fumbling their fingers and trying to per- 
suade the Sultan to be good and stop perse- 



86 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

cutingthe Armenians — the murders going on 
all the while — Miss Willard and her stanch 
friend, Lady Henry vSomerset, set themselves 
to work to do the deed of sisterly kind- 
ness that was in their reach. They went to 
Marseilles, where hundreds of fugitive Ar- 
menians were landing from every Eastern 
shij), and set up a restaurant to feed these 
hungry brothers and sisters. Theirs were 
the first hands stretched out to help the 
despairing immigrants as they landed on 
European soil. Theirs were the sympathiz- 
ing faces into which the hopeless travelers 
looked, and hoped and took courage again. 
No wonder their restaurant soon came to be 
known as " The Kitchen of Jesus Christ." 



THE APOSTLE TO THE RED MEN. 87 



XV. 

The Apostle to the Red Men. 

DR. CUYLER says that Bishop Westcott, 
of Durham, England, once said to Miss 
Smiley, " The most apostolic man I 
ever met is your Bishop Whipple." A good 
many of lis believe that Englishman to be a 
good judge of an apostle. 

Bishop Whipple has been the life-long 
friend of the American Indian. At the first 
missionary meeting which he attended after 
his consecration as a bishop one of the older 
bishops said to him : ' ' You are to speak to- 
night ; don't say anything about Indian 
missions — they are a failure. You are a 
young bishop and cannot afford to be thought 
an enthusiast." Little did that conservative 
bishop know the character of the man with 
whom he was dealing. When Bishop Whip- 
ple came to speak he took the audience into 
his confidence and frankly repeated the ad- 
vice that had been given him, and, taking 
that for his text, he proceeded to deliver a 



88 HEROIC PERSONALiriES. 

warm-hearted appeal for sending the Gospel 
to the red men. 

He never tires of telling stories of the 
Indians, among whom he has preached so 




Bishop Whipple. 

long. Once, when he had distinguished 
visitors at one of his missions, the Indians 
prepared a pantomime for the entertainment 
of the bishop and his friends. The chief. 



THE APOSTLE TO THE RED MEN. 89 

Wah-a-bouquot, asked him: "Does your 
English friend know the history of the 
Ojibways? Would he like to hear it? " On 
receiving an affirmative answer hecontinued : 
" Before the white man came the woods and 
prairies were full of game, the lakes and 
rivers were full of fish, and the wild rice 
was the Great Spirit's gift to the red man, 
I will show you some of my people as they 
were before the white man came." 

The door of the house opened, and out 
came an Indian dressed in skins and orna- 
mented with colored porcupine quills, and 
by his side an Indian woman in a neat dress 
of skins trimmed with fur. 

The chief said : " My father, you see the 
Indians such as they were before the white 
man came. Shall I tell you what the white 
man did for us? He said: 'You have no 
houses, no firehorses, no firecanoes, no 
books, no implements of toil ; give us your 
land and we will make your people as the 
white man.' The white man had a forked 
tongue. I will show you what he gave 
us." 



90 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Then came out a man with face be- 
smeared with mud, in a ragged blanket, 
without leggings, and by his side an Indian 
woman in a tattered calico dress. The 
chief cried: "O God, is this an Indian? 
How came it? " The Indian took out from 
under his blanket a black bottle and said, 
"■ hkotu-zvabo (fire-water); the white man 
gave it to us." 

The chief then said: " Many moons ago 
a pale white man came to see us. We hated 
white men and would not listen. But each 
year when the sun was so high we knew we 
should see that white man coming through 
the pines. We called a council. We asked : 
' Why does he come? He does not trade. 
He asks nothing from us ; perhaps the Great 
Spirit sent him.' We did listen and took 
that story to our hearts. Shall I tell you 
what it has done for us? " 

Then came out of the house an Indian in 
a black frock coat, and by his side an Indian 
woman in a black alpaca dress. The chief 
said, "My friends, there is the only reli- 
g^ion in the world that can lift a man out of 



THE Al'OSTLL TO THE RED MEN 91 

the mire and tell him to call the Great Spirit 
his Father." 

A skeptical traveler who was present 
grasped Bishop Whipple by the hand and 
exclaimed, " All the arguments I have read 
in defense of Christianity are not equal to 
what I have seen to-day ! " 



92 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XVI. 
Up to Heaven on Wings of Song, 
"fflTARY A. LIVERMORE is one of the 
lYI few of those splendid personalities who 
1 accomplished service of national inter- 
est and importance a generation ago, but have 
gone on with ever-increasing enthusiasm 
and freshness of spirit 
into the new world of 
to-day. Mrs. Livermore 
threw her sublime en- 
ergy, immense store of 
practical wisdom, and 
boundless tenderness of 
heart into caring for the 

Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. ^.^^ ^^^^ wounded sol- 
diers during the dark days of the War of the 
Rebellion. In her thrilling book, 3/j Story 
of the War, there is, perhaps, gathered more 
heart-stirring incidents than are found in 
any other volume which has grown out of 
that historic period. 

Here is one which reveals some of the 




IT TO HEAVEN OX WINGS OF SONG. 93 

characteristics of this great-hearted, heroic 
woman : 

She was one day nearing the completion 
of her tour of a hosj^ital ward, when she 
paused beside the cot of a poor fellow on 
whose face the unmistakable look of death 
was settling. 

" You are suffering a great deal," she 
said. 

"O yes I O yes I" he gasped; "I am, 
I am ; but not in body. I can bear that. I 
don't mind pain — I can bear anything — but 
I can't die ! I can't die 1 " 

"Why are you afraid to die?" she in- 
quired. " Tell me, my poor boy." 

" I ain't fit to die. I have lived an awful 
life, and I'm afraid to die. I shall go to 
hell." 

She drew a camp stool to his bedside, and, 
sitting down, put her hands on his shoul- 
ders, and spoke in commanding tones, as to 
an excited child, " Stop screaming. Be 
quiet. If you must die, die like a man, and 
not like a coward. Be still, and listen to 
me." And she proceeded to combat his fear 



94 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

of death and his sense of guilt with assur- 
ances of God's willingness to pardon. She 
told him of Christ's mission on earth, and 
assured him that however great had been 
his sins they would be forgiven of God, since 
he was penitent and sought forgiveness. 
She bade him repeat after her the words of 
a prayer, which he did with tearful earnest- 
ness. She strengthened her assurances 
by Bible quotations and illustrations from 
the life of Christ, but she felt she was mak- 
ing little impression on the dying man. At 
last the poor fellow exclaimed, " Can't you 
get a minister? I used to belong to the church, 
but I fell away. O, send for a minister! " 

Mrs. Livermore was determined that 
nothing should be left undone that might 
bring comfort and salvation to the poor fel- 
low, and, on inquir3% found that the hospital 
steward Avas also a minister, and soon had 
him at the man's bedside. To him the 
wounded soldier listened eagerly. After the 
.steward had talked with him a little, and 
prayed with him, Mrs. Livermore inquired, 
" Can't you sing? " 



UP TO HEAVEN ON WINGS OF SONG. 95 

Immediately, in a rich, full, clear tenor, 
whose melody floated throug-h the ward and 
charmed every groan and wail into silence, 
the steward sang hymn after hymn, all of 
them familiar : 

" Come, luimljle sinner, in whose breast 
A thousand thoughts revoh'e. 

" Love divine, all love excelling, 
Joy of heaven, to earth come down. 

" Jesus, Lover of my soul, 
Let me to thy bosom fly. 

" ^ly days are gliding swiftly by, 
And 1, a pilgrim stranger." 

All of these hymns were so well known to 
the dying soldier that she saw he followed 
the singer, verse after verse. The music 
affected him as she had hoped. The burden 
rolled from the poor boy's heart, and, in 
feeble, tender tones, he said : " It's all right 
with me, chaplain ! I will trust in Christ ! 
God will forgive me ! I can die now ! " 

" vSing on, chaplain!" Mrs. Livermore 
suggested, as he seemed about to pause to 
make reply. "God is sending peace and 
light into the troubled soul of this poor 



96 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

boy through these divine hymns and your 
heavenly voice. Sing on; don't stop! " 

He continued to sing, but now chose a 
different style of hymn and tune, and burst 
forth into a most rapturous strain : 

" Come, sinjj to me of heaven, 

For I'm about to die ; 
Sing songs of holy ecstasy. 

To waft my soul on high. 

" There'll be no sorrow there, 
There'll be no sorrow there. 
In heaven above, where all is love, 
There'll be no sorrow there." 

vShe looked down the ward and saw that 
the wan faces of the men, contracted with 
pain, were brightening. She looked at the 
dying man beside her and saw, underneath 
the deepening pallor of death, an almost 
radiant gleam. 

Then the chaplain was summoned away 
by a call from his office. It was getting late 
in the afternoon, for she had tarried a 
couple of hours at this bedside, and her 
friends came from other wards of the hospi- 
tal to say that it was time to return. 

"Don't go; stay!" whi.spered the fast- 



UP TO HEAVEN ON WINGS OF SONG. 97 

sinking man. The words of the Master 
rushed to her memory, ' ' Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of these, 
ye have done it unto me," and she promised 
to remain with him to the end. The end 
came sooner tlian anyone thought. Before 
the sun went down, with courageous heart 
and rapturous face, he had put out to sea 
for the immortal shore. 



98 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XVII. 
On the Edge of a Crevasse. 
[ANSEN, tlie Arctic hero of the hour, 
has almost every element that is adapted 
to arouse the admiration and enthusiasm 
of those who love the strong, the daring, 
and heroic in mankind. 

He is a man of splendid stature, and 
trained as he has been from his childhood to 
all the virtues of the athlete, he is one of the 
most rugged and tireless specimens of phys- 
ical manhood the world affords to-day. He 
has succeeded where other men failed, not 
only because of his dauntless courage, but 
because nature and training have fitted him 
to perform feats of physical endurance that 
few men in the world could accomplish. 

Once, on his arrival in London, he min- 
gled in a great crowd at Buckingham Pal- 
ace, and pushed himself up to the front just 
as the Princess of Wales arrived to hold a 
drawing-room. As he was waving his hat 
with the crowd in honor of the princess he 



ON THE EDGE OF A CREVASSE. 99 




Dr. Fridtjof Nansen. 



loo HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

felt a twitch at his watch chain and knew that 
he was being plied by a pickpocket. But 
Nansen had altogether too cool a head to lej; 
such a little thing excite him, as would have 
been the case with a smaller man ; he simply 
dropped his left hand and let its giant-like 
grip grasp the wrist of the thief. Without 
even looking to see who it was he continued 
to cheer and wave his hat aloft in his right 
hand until the enthusiasm had subsided. 
Then he quietly handed his prisoner over 
to a policeman. Nansen said he merely 
held the man tightly, but the miserable 
wretch was howling with pain, and declared 
that he would rather go to prison than have 
his bones crushed. 

On one occasion, when returning to camp 
after an absence, they saw their canoes drift- 
ing from land with all their provisions and 
necessaries of life. To reach the boats was 
a matter of life or death. Not to reach them 
was certain death. The great qualities of 
the explorer came out quick as a lightning 
flash, when, without a moment's hesitation, 
lie sprang into the ice-cold water and swam 



ON THE EDGE OF A CREVASSE. loi 

after the drifting- canoes. He was chilled 
to the bone, but he succeeded in his object, 
and brought the canoes safely back to camp. 

It was no group of weaklings that Nansen 
had with him, either. One incident reminds 
us of the story of David. On one occasion, 
while dragging their sledges along a narrow 
patch, they were suddenly confronted by a 
polar bear, but Johansen, a fit companion 
for Nansen, caught the great beast by the 
throat and held him at arm's length, wdiile 
his chief sent a bullet through his heart with 
his rifle. 

Perhaps no twitter of birds ever fell more 
sweetly on human ears than those which 
Nansen describes in TJic First Crossing of 
Grctiiland. As they were breakfasting in 
their walled tent in the midst of the ice des- 
ert of the desolate North, they were aston- 
ished to hear, as they thought, the twittering 
of a bird outside ; but the sound soon stopped, 
and they were not at all certain of its reality. 
But as they were starting again after their 
one o'clock dinner that day they suddenly 
became aware of twitterings in the air, and. 



I02 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

as they stopped, sure enough they saw a 
snow bunting come flying after them. It 
wandered around them two or three times, 
and plainly showed signs of a Avish to sit 
upon one of their sledges. But the neces- 
sary audacity was not forthcoming, and it 
settled on the snow in front for a few mo- 
ments before it finally flew away with an- 
other encouraging twitter. 

Very welcome indeed was that little bird, 
for it gave them a friendly greeting from the 
land they were sure must now be near. Nan- 
sen says, ' ' We blessed it for its cheering song, 
and with warmer hearts and renewed strength 
we confidently went on our way." How 
many such snow buntings of hope God sends 
to cheer and warm the hearts of those who 
face hardship and peril with unshaken in- 
trepidity and courageous purpose ! 

But even in sight of land they came near 
losing their lives. As the wind came up 
very strong in the afternoon they sought to 
travel more rapidly by setting sail on their 
sledges and using them as iceboats. Their 
ships flew over the waves and drifts of snow 



ON THE EDGE OF A CREVASSE. 103 

with a speed that almost took their breath 
away. After a time, as it was growing dusk, 
Dr. Nansen ran ahead of the sledges on his 
snowshoes to make sure that they should not 
come to any sudden disaster. His prudence 
saved their lives, for, as they were rushing 
along through the dense driving snow, he 
suddenly saw, in the general obscurity, 
something dark lying right in their path. 
He took it for an ordinary irregularity in 
the snow, and unconcernedly steered straight 
ahead. The next moment, however, he 
found that they were on the edge of a chasm 
broad enough to swallow sledges, steersman, 
and passengers. A single moment later and 
they would have forever disappeared, and 
have been more completely lost to the world 
than was the fated Dr. Franklin. 



I04 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



G 



XVIII. 
Saint Content Wintergreen. 
ONTENT WINTERGREEN has come to 
her sainthood through what most people 
would call o-reat tribulation, thouoh she 




Saint Content Wintergreen. 

herself never thinks of it as such, and does 
not dream that anything she has done would 
look heroic in the eyes of anyone. 



SAINT CONTEXT WTNTERGREEN. 105 

Content Wiutergreen was born seventy- 
nine years ago in a little town in Central 
New York. When she was still a child her 
mother died, and her father brought his 
family of three girls and a boy to tr}- their 
fortunes in the then small city of Brooklyn. 
Sixty years ago Content Wintergreen found 
the source of all true contentment in a sweet 
fellowship with Jesus Christ. 

The family were poor, and the girls early 
sought to help bear the burdens of the house- 
hold by working in a tailor's shop or bring- 
ing their work home, as Content did after 
a while, when the father was ill. One of the 
sisters married and went away to enjo}- the 
happiness of her own home and family, but 
as the other sister soon lost her health, Con- 
tent had no time to think of love affairs, save 
to care for the loved ones of her own house- 
hold. The brother had grown up and gone 
West, and on Content's frail shoulders fell 
all the burden of the home. 

The father died soon afterward, and 
though that wrung her heart, she had not 
time for morbid grief, for there Avas her in- 



io6 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

valid sister to provide for still. For four- 
teen years she wrought with her needle and 
earned enough to care for them both, and 
ministered with a mother's love and tender- 
ness to her sick companion, who was never 
able to go beyond the door of their humble 
room. 

During the last and most trying year of 
her sister's illness a letter came from the 
brother telling the sad news that he had been 
stricken by a fatal disease and longed to come 
home and die in the arms of some one who 
loved him. There was not a moment's 
hesitation. Content thought only of the 
blue-eyed brother who had been the play- 
mate of her childhood, and in a most loving 
letter she bade him come. This made three 
mouths to feed instead of two, and a double 
burden of nursing; yet in recounting this 
experience she says, "Those were very 
happy days, after all. Though we were poor, 
we loved each other and were so happy to- 
gether." The brother after a few months 
passed away, and only a little later the sister, 
too, faded out of life. 



SAh\T CONTENT WINTERGREEN. 107 

" The only time I was ever tempted to 
murmur," said Content, witli a wistful face 
— and I knew by the far-away look in her 
eyes that a picture of other days was passing 
before her inner vision — "was when my 
sister died. It was hard, the working all 
day and the being up so much nursing her 
in the night, but love made it light, and I 
had cared for her so long that I think I felt 
about her as a mother does for a crippled 
child." 

During edl these years of toil and nursing 
Content Wintergreen never for a moment 
thought of excusing herself from Christian 
work. For forty years she Avas one of the 
most persevering and successful tract dis- 
tributors that Brooklyn has ever known. 
vShe could not go to church much, and seldom 
had time to seek out anyone for a personal 
talk, but she never allowed herself to go out 
of the room to the tailor's shop, or to the 
o-rocer's, or to the market, without her little 
bundle of tracts, which with gentleness and 
skill she gave out here and there with a 
kindly word of good cheer that made them 



io8 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

welcome. Many a home among the poor 
was sweetened by the little visitor carried 
into it from the market-place. In this way 
Content Wintergreen introduced her divine 
Lord and Master, whom she loved so well 
and served so faithfully, to hundreds of 
people. 

For a long time now Content has lived 
alone, and on her next birthday she will have 
reached her fourscore years. She is not able 
to work much, and a kind relative pays her 
room rent, and allows her four dollars a 
month for living expenses; out of that four 
dollars she provides her provision and fuel 
and clothing. 

Her constant theme is the goodness and 
mercy of God, and the abundance of his 
blessings to her. Her desire to be a worker 
for Christ is as strong as ever. A young 
friend who had been for a long time taking 
her the newspapers to read, on one occasion, 
desiring a paper in which to wrap a parcel, 
said to her: "Auntie Wintergreen, what be- 
comes of all the papers I bring? You never 
seem to have any about here." The dear 



SAINT CONTENT WINTERGREEN. 109 

old saint flushed red like a schoolgirl caught 
whispering, and stammered out : "I hope 
you won't mind, but I save the papers up, 
and every two weeks I take them down to 
the jail. I thought I might perhaps do a 
little good yet in that way." 

Her face is wrinkled and worn, but her 
soul is flushed with immortal youth, and in 
the resurrection glory it will glow forever 
with the peace of Him whom having not seen 
she loves. 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XIX. 

The Father of Prohibition. 

ONE evening", many years ago, a woman 
came to the home of Neal Dow, in Port- 
land, Me., in great distress. She was 
the wife of an intelligent, capable citizen, 
with a large, promising family. He held a 
government position, and executed the duties 
of his office to the great satisfaction of the 
department and of the public; but he had 
one terrible habit, which grieved and morti- 
fied his family and friends and threatened 
the loss of his office : it was periodical in- 
temperance. On his way back and forth 
from his office to his house he passed a cer- 
tain liquor saloon, and was enticed into it. 

On this occasion the wife was in great sor- 
row and fear. She said her husband had 
been away from his desk and was now in 
this saloon ; that if he did not at once return 
to his employment, he would be removed 
from office, and the family would be left in 
shame and destitution. 



THE FATHER OF PROHIBriTON. iii 




The veteran Neal Dow in his home at Portland, Me. 



112 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Neal Dow went immediately to the saloon 
and inquired for his neighbor. At first the 
rumseller endeavored to conceal his cus- 
tomer, but Mr. Dow found him and re- 
quested the proprietor to sell him no more 
liquor. 

He replied, " I must supply my custom- 
ers." 

" But, don't you see," said Mr. Dow, 
" that this gentleman has a large family to 
support? If he neglects to go to his office 
to-morrow, he will lose his place. I beg of 
you do not sell him any more strong drink." 

The rumseller then grew angry and said 
he, too, had a family to support ; that he had 
a license, and would sell to all who called 
for it, and that he wanted none of Dow's 
advice. 

Neal Dow's answer was : "So you have a 
license, and support your family by the im- 
poverishment and ruin of other families? 
With God's help I will tiy to change all 
this! " 

How he did change it all, how he sowed 
Maine knee-deep in temperance literature, 



THE FATHER OF rROHIBITION. 113 

liow he traveled and spoke and argued and 
conquered, the whole world knows. But it 
is doubtful if the present generation of 
younger people has much conception of the 
eloquence of which this man was capable 
half a century ago. Mr. George H. Shirley, 
at present a citizen of Brooklyn, and one of 
Mr. Dow's faithful coadjutors in that great 
campaign, says of him : " Many times have 
we heard him pour forth the most scathing 
invectives and the most brilliant utterances 
against thd traffic, and not hesitating to de- 
nounce the rumseller by name. These ora- 
torical efforts were equal to the best speeches 
of Sumner or Phillips. I have often been 
surprised that he escaped physical injury 
from his opponents." 

The secret of Dow's great success was his 
utter fearlessness and his readiness to attack 
the wrong wherever he found it, and his 
keen feeling of personal responsibility for 
every evil it was in his power to right. The 
following incident sets forth this chief he- 
roic characteristic of the man : 

Neal Dow was once passing downi one of 



114 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

the streets of Portland, when he noticed 
a crowd of people, among whom was the 
mayor of the city. In the center of the 
group was a country lad crying. The lad 
had been imposed upon by a noted horse 
jockey of the town, who had got the boy 
drunk and then induced him to swap the 
horse he had driven into town for an old 
plug. Upon hearing his story, telling the 
boy to follow him with the jockey's horse, 
Mr. Dow led the way to the latter's stable, 
nearly a inile distant. Not finding the 
jockey in, the old horse was turned into the 
stable and ]Mr. Dow, with the country lad 
still following, started back to town. On 
the way they met the jockey. He was 
driving in a wagon to which the lad's horse 
was attached. 

" That's my horse," said the boy. 

Mr. Dow stepped into the road, took the 
horse by the bridle, and, calling to one of 
his employees who happened to be passing 
at the time, told him to unharness the horse, 
which he did, the irate jockey, meanwhile, 
threatening to take the law on Mr. Dow, 



THE FATHER OF PROHIBITION. 115 

who replied, " You will always know where 
to find me." 

Then, telling the boy to take the horse, 
he started again for the eity, where the lad's 
wagon had been left. 

" Look a-here," said the jockey, as they 
went, " what am I to do with my wagon? " 

" Do what you like," said Mr. Dow. " It 
is nothing to me." 

As may be expected, the country lad was 
full of joy and profuse with thanks. When 
he had hairnessed his horse he said to Mr. 
Dow, " Now, wdiat can I do for you? " 

" Promise me not to drink any more." 
And the boy did so. 

Some three years afterward Neal Dow 
was stopped by a countryman in the streets, 
who, with mouth stretched on a broad grin, 
said, pointing to a horse, " There he is. I 
hain't drunk no more." 



ii6 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



A 



XX. 

"The Good-luck House." 
BOUT eighteen years ago Mrs. Alice N. 
Lincohi, a young lady of high culture 
and refinement, with means at her com- 




Mrs. Alice N. Lincoln. 

mand to live a life of ease and indifference 
to the world's sorrows if she had so pleased, 
became very deeply interested in the pitia- 



"THE GOOD-LUCK HOUSE." 117 

ble condition of many of the poorer people 
in the tenement houses of Boston, and under- 
took with heroic determination to do what 
was within her power to better their condi- 
tion. 

She hired a large house in the heart of 
Slumdom. It contained twenty-seven tene- 
ments, and she paid one thousand dollars a 
year rent for the first year and afterward 
twelve hundred. The house had a bad rep- 
utation, morally, and had been for some 
time under the ban of the police. At the 
time she took it half the tenements were 
empty, because of the degraded character of 
the occupants. Its entries and corridors 
were blackened with smoke ; the sinks were 
in dark corners, and were foul and disease- 
breeding; the stairways were innocent of 
water or broom, and throughout the entire 
house from top to bottom everything was 
dirty and neglected. It was surely not an 
attractive task to attempt to bring cleanli- 
ness and order out of such chaos, but this 
resolute young reformer deliberately set her- 
self to perform the seemingly impossible. 



ii8 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

The interior was painted; an improved 
method of lighting and ventilating the sinks 
was introduced ; fresh plaster replaced the 
moldy wall paper in the entries, and wood 
and coal closets were provided for each ten- 
ement on its own landing. Previously all 
the fuel had been kept in the cellar. A few 
of the worst tenants had to be removed, but 
the majority, pleased with the new order of 
things, were willing to accept the rules and 
remain. Tenants were soon found for every 
room ; and this house, which had been a 
hive for fevers under the old regime of 
greed, that did not care how dirty the ten- 
ants were so long as they paid their rent, 
became, under the new rule of cleanliness, 
so healthy that disease was almost unknown, 
and was, and is to this day, known by the 
tenants and the neighborhood generally as 
" The Good-luck House." 

During all these years Mrs. Lincoln has 
collected her own rents, and kept everything 
well under her own supervision. A close ac- 
count of all receipts and expenditures has 
been kept. At the end of the first year the 



"THE GOOD-LUCK HOUSE." 119 

balance of cash in hand was $1 1 1 .67, or more 
than eleven per cent on the investment. The 
second year it was still more profitable, the net 
sum at the end of the year being $157.47. 
Mrs. Lincoln still carries on the administra- 
tion of " The Good-luck House," and no 
queen was ever treated with more genuine re- 
spect than she is there. She is regarded as a 
most practical .sort of patron saint to the in- 
stitution. Yet there is no element of char- 
ity suggested in her dealings with her 
tenants.. It is simply Christian justice. With 
great care she seeks to help them retain 
their self-respect, and treats them as fully 
her equal in personal responsibility. The 
rent is required to be paid regularly. One 
rigid rule enforced upon all tenants is clean- 
liness. She pays for the weekly scrubbing 
of the halls and stairways, but the tenants 
are required to sweep them every day in 
turn. The sinks and drains are kept clean. 
All this has a marvelous effect on the home 
habits of the inmates ; and I have seen as 
clean and tidy rooms in " The Good-luck " 
tenement house as I have seen anywhere, 



I20 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

and that, too, on days when they were 
caught unawares, it not being the regular 
rent day. 

Mrs. Lincoln has a conscience, and justly 
feels that if six per cent interest is enough 
for business men to pay on money borrowed, 
it is enough for poor people to pay on their 
investments in rents, and so all the profits 
above six per cent she puts into the bank as 
an emergency fund, and from time to time 
the tenants have been permitted to share 
some unexpected pleasure from this surplus. 



DR. JACKSON'S NIGHT ON THE DEEP. 121 



XXI. 

Sheldon Jackson's Night on the Deep. 

ONE of the most heroic personalities of 
modern times, and one \vho might fitly 
be included in any group of heroic 
spirits in any age of the world, is Rev. 
Sheldon Jackson, D.D., who, in a higher 
sense than any ecclesiastical power could 
designate, is the Bishop of all Alaska. Dr. 
Jackson hds indeed been a father to the for- 
gotten and neglected tribes of that far-away 
Arctic wonderland. He has not only trav- 
eled thousands of miles, and endured lone- 
liness and hardship to carry the Gospel to 
the natives in their heathenism, but he has 
been ever ready to thrust his persistent and 
invincible personality between these poor 
ignorant creatures and the cruel and rapa- 
cious human sharks who would prey upon 
them. He has also been indefatigable in 
his self-denying efforts to introduce the 
reindeer into their impoverished land and 
secure them from extinction bv starvation. 



122 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Dr. Jackson's whole career in Alaska is 
one heroic story, but here is a simple ac- 
count of one little missionary trip in a canoe 



■><*• . 




Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D.D. 

which, for motive, exposure, and danger, 
might well be put alongside of Paul's trip 
when he was shipwrecked on his way to 
Rome: 

At three o'clock in the morning they were 
aroused, and were soon underway without any 



DR. JACKSON'S NIGHT ON THE DEEP. 123 

breakfast. This did not matter much, how- 
ever, as their entire stock of provisions con- 
sisted of a limited quantity of ship biscuit 
and smoked sahnon — biscuit and sahnon for 
breakfast, salmon and biscuit for dinner, and 
straight salmon for a change for supper in the 
evening. The Indians upon the trip only- 
averaged one meal in twenty-four hours. As 
they were passing the mouth of a shallow 
mountain stream the canoe was anchored to 
a big rock. The Indians, wading up the 
stream, in a few minutes with poles and 
paddles clubbed to death some thirty salm- 
on, averaging twenty-five pounds each in 
weight. These were thrown into the canoe 
and taken along. 

At noon they put ashore for their first 
meal that day. Fires were made under the 
shelter of a great rock. The fish, cleaned 
and hung upon sticks, were soon broiling 
before the fire. After dinner all hands took 
a nap upon the beach. 

At three in the afternoon they were again 
under way. When night came the Indians 
could find no suitable landing-place, and 



124 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

paddled on until two o'clock next morning, 
having made a day's work of twenty-three 
hours. Finding a sheltered bay, they then 
ran ashore. As it was raining hard, they 
spread their blankets as best they could un- 
der sheltering rocks or projecting roots of 
the great pines. 

After a few hours of uncomfortable sleep 
they again embarked. Toward evening 
they passed Cape Fox and boldly launched 
out to cross the arm of the sea, and once out 
they found the sea becoming so rough that 
it was as dangerous to turn back as to go 
forward. The night was dark, the waves 
rolling high, and the storm beating upon 
them. One Indian stood upon the prow of 
the canoe all night, watching the waves and 
giving orders. Every man was at his place, 
and the stroke of the paddles kept time with 
the measured song of the leader, causing 
the canoe to mount each wave with two 
strokes; then, with a click, each paddle 
would at the same instant strike the side of 
the canoe and remain motionless, gathering 
strensfth for the next wave. As the billows 



DR. JACKSON'S NIGHT ON THE DEEP. 125 

struck the canoe it quivered from stem to 
stern. 

In the morning they landed at an old de- 
serted Indian village, whose forest of totem 
poles told of the heathenish rites and super- 
stitions from which he was trying to save 
this wretched people. These horrid monu- 
ments of the past with their grinning faces 
spoke to him only too plainly of savage 
butcheries, horrible cannibal feasts, inhuman 
torture of witches, and fiendish carousals 
around the burning dead. 

The Indians were so exhausted by the 
labors of the past night that they were com- 
pelled to go ashore and get some rest. On 
shore they tried to start a fire, but the driv- 
ing rain soon extinguished it. Taking his 
regulation meal of salmon and hard tack, 
Dr. Jackson spread his blankets under a big 
log and tried to sleep. The beating vStorm 
soon saturated the blankets, and he awoke 
to find the water running down his back. 
Rising, he paced up and down the beach 
until the Indians were ready to move on. 
After a rest of two hours, seeing no sign of 



126 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

a lull in the storm, they reembarked on their 
jotirney. 

Such journeys this heroic man was 
willing to take that he might carry the 
Gospel to his brethren whom he had never 
seen before, and who had no more claim on 
him than they have upon us. And yet how 
hard it is for us sometimes to carry a mes- 
sage of hope and vSalvation to the neighbor 
of our own color and tongue who has be- 
come disheartened and is perhaps perishing 
for just the word of good cheer we can 
speak. Thinking of Jackson's dark night 
in the canoe, may we be inspired to go on 
our errand for the Alaster this very day I 



WOMAN'S TEiMPERANCE CRUSADE. 127 



XXII. 

The First March of the Woman's Temperance 

Crusade. 

A BOY of sixteen, the son of Judge 
Thompson, of Hillsboro, O. , came home 
one nio;ht after listening to a lecture on 
temperance by Dr. Dio Lewis, of Boston. 
Finding- his mother still up, he related to 
her that in the course of his remarks Dr. 
Lewis had t'old how his own mother and sev- 
eral of her good Christian friends had united 
in praying with and for the liquor sellers of 
his native town until they had given up their 
soul-destroying business, and then had said, 
" Ladies, 3-ou might do the same thing in 
Hillsboro if you had the same faith." After- 
ward he had put the matter to vote, and 
more than fifty of the women by rising had 
pledged themselves to make the efTort. 

"And now, mother," said the enthusiastic 
boy, ' ' they have got you into business ; for 
you are on a committee to do some work at 
the Presbyterian church in the morning at 



128 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



nine o'clock, and then the ladies want yon 
to go out with them to the saloons." 

Judge Thompson had that evening re- 
turned from court in another county, and 




Mrs. Thompson, of Hillsboro. O. 

being very tired, was resting on the sofa. 
The mother and son, supposing that he was 
asleep, had been talking in an undertone; 
but as the boy spoke about his mother going 
to the saloons the judge suddenly roused 



WOMAN'S TEMPERAN'CE CRUSADE. 129 

up and exclaimed, " What tomfoolery is all 
that?" The boy slipped out of the room 
and went to bed, while Mrs. Thompson as- 
sured her husband that she would not be led 
into any foolish act by Dio Lewis or anybody 
else. After he had relaxed into a milder 
mood, though continuing to scoff at the 
whole plan as " tomfoolery," she ventured 
to remind him that the men had been in the 
' ' tomfoolery " business a long time, and sug- 
gested that it might be " God's will " that 
the women should now take their part. 

The next morning after breakfast, when 
they were gathered in the sitting-room, the 
boy came up, and laying his hand on his 
mother's shoulder, inquired, " Mother, are 
you not going over to the church this morn- 
ing? " As she hesitated and doubtless 
showed in her countenance that she was 
greatly perplexed, the boy said, "But, my 
dear mother, you know you have to go." 
Then her daughter, who was sitting on a 
stool at her side, leaned over in a most tender 
manner, and looking up in her face, said, 

" Don't you think you will go? " 
9 



I30 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

During the progress of this conversation 
Judge Thompson had been walking the 
floor in silence. Suddenly he stopped, and 
placing his hand upon the family Bible that 
lay upon his wife's work-table, he said, 
"Children, you know where your mother 
goes to settle all vexed questions. Let us 
leave her alone " — going out of the room as 
he spoke, the children following him. 

Mrs. Thompson turned the key in the lock 
and was in the act of kneeling down to pray 
when she heard a gentle tap on the door. 
Upon opening it she found her daughter 
with her Bible open and the tears coursing 
down her cheeks as she said, " I opened to 
this, mother; it must be for you." She im- 
mediately left the room, and her mother sat 
down to read with new insight the wonder- 
ful message of promise in the 146th Psalm, 

Doubting no longer what her duty was, 
she at once went to the Presbyterian church, 
where quite a congregation had already 
gathered. She was at once unanimously 
chosen as the president, Mrs. General Mc- 
Dowell as vice president, and Mrs. D. K. 



WOMAN'S TEMPERANCE CRUSADE. 131 

P^inner as secretary of the unique work which 
they were to perform. They drew up ap- 
peals to druggists, saloon keepers, and hotel 
proprietors. 

Then Dr. McSurely, the Presbyterian min- 
ister, who had up to this time occupied the 
chair, called upon the new president to come 
forward and take her place. She tried to 
get up; but having never done any public 
work, her limbs refused to act, and she sat 
still. Wise Dr. McSurely looked around at 
the men and said, " Brethren, I see that the 
ladies will do nothing while we remain ; let 
us adjourn, leaving this new work with God 
and the women." 

After the men had filed out and the door 
was closed behind them new strength 
seemed to come to Mrs. Thompson, and she 
walked forward to the minister's table, took 
the large Bible, and, opening it, told the 
story of the morning in her own home. 
After she had tearfully read the psalm and 
commented on it, she called upon Mrs. Mc- 
Dowell to lead in prayer. Now, Mrs. Mc- 
Dowell, though a good Christian woman for 



132 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

many years, had never in all her life heard 
her own voice in prayer ; but she prayed that 
morning as though Isaiah's " coal of fire" 
had unsealed her lips. 

As they rose from their knees Mrs. 
Thompson asked Mrs. Cowden, the wife of 
the Methodist minister, to lead in the singing 
of the old hymn, "Give to the winds thy 
fears ; " and turning to the rest of the women 
she said, "As we all join in singing this 
hymn let us form in line, two by two, the 
small women in front, leaving the tall ones 
to bring up the rear, and let us at once pro- 
ceed to our sacred mission, trusting alone in 
the God of Jacob." As they marched out 
through the door of the church into the 
street they were singing these prophetic 

words : 

" Far, far above thy thought 

His counsels shall appear, 
When fully He the work hath wrought 

That caused thy needless fear." 

And thus was begun the first march of 
that mighty crusade that proved to be a di- 
vine contagion which has spread to the ends 
of the earth. 



THE HOUR OF DECISION. 



133 



T 



XXIII. 
The Hour of Decision. 
HERE is one hour forever sacred to 
every earnest man who has, after the 
years of childhood, consciously chosen 



*»****''' 




Dr. Jesse Bowman Young. 

Christ for his Saviour and consecrated him- 
self to the service of God. Many a time on 



134 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

the frontier in Oregon, at the great camp 
meetings held in the leafy groves, I have 
listened to the old men and women as with 
tearful earnestness, and yet with buoyant, 
joyous spirit, they told of that hour of hours 
when they broke away from sin and chose 
Jesus Christ to be the Captain of their sal- 
vation. 

I have an hour like that in my own mem- 
ory that I would not blot out for the price 
of worlds. It was one night at a watch- 
night service in a little Western college 
chapel. It was almost midnight, and the 
appeal to let the old year die with all the old 
sins, and the new year bring in a new life 
of righteous purpose, had been very clear 
and strong. The audience were on their 
feet singing, and some were going to the 
altar in witness of their holy purpose. I 
stood at the end of the seat next the aisle 
and longed to go, but had not the courage, 
until an old carpenter with one leg shorter 
than the other, so that he limped painfully 
at every step, came down the aisle with the 
eye of a fisherman after souls. As he drew 



THE HOUR OF DECISION. 135 

near he laid his hand upon my shoulder and 
said, " Louis, is it not time for you to go? " 
The weight of the old man's limp pushed 
me a step down the aisle, and on I went to- 
ward a Christian life. I have always said, 
" It was the weight of the old man's limp 
that did it." 

It is such a story of decision, only one 
with far more romantic and heroic surround- 
ings, that I started in to tell. 

I have just been reading Jesse Bowman 
Young's beautiful book, U7urt a Boy Saiv in 
the Army, a rare and fascinating sketch of 
what a boy saw of those weird and terrible 
days of struggle. It was just before the 
battle of Gettysburg, and this youth, who 
had gone to the front, as did many another 
from both North and South, while only a 
lad, was lying in the grass in a very sober 
mood, running his eye along the gathering 
lines of men, now peering anxiously across 
the landscape to the westward, noting the 
woods behind which the Confederates were 
concentrating their forces and wondering 
why the battle did not open. 



136 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

This boy had faced death on the battle- 
field many a time before, and it was not fear 
that made him sober. It was God's call to 
his conscience. Above all other meditations 
— thoughts of home, of loved ones far away, 
of the course of the battle — sounded in his 
soul the question, " What about the future? 
Suppose you are killed, what will become of 
3-ou? In a few moments the tempest will 
break over this field, and you will have to 
face it. You cannot now escape in any way 
from this emergency. In the face of the 
opening battle how about the future ? Are 
you ready to meet God and to face the issues 
of another world? " 

Lying there on the hillside, he was trou- 
bled and overwhelmed at the outlook. He 
had been brought up in a religious home, 
had been taught to be a Christian from 
childhood ; but amid the roughness, the ex- 
posures, the grossness, and the dissipation 
of army life for nearh' two years many of 
these lessons and early impressions had 
grown dim, and many of the admonitory 
voices which had sounded a clear, strons: 



THE. HOUR OF DECISION. 137 

note at home had ceased to influence him. 
Now, in a desperate emergency, with the 
possibilities of death before him, his sins 
rose up in alarming array, and his neglected 
soul was smitten with a sense of its needy 
and suppliant condition. " O Lord, have 
mercy on me !" was the single cry of his 
broken heart as he sought to keep back the 
tears, maintain his composure, and hide the 
tumult which disturbed his breast. Then 
he bethought himself of the Bible he car- 
ried, his mother's parting gift, the book 
that he had neglected and slighted of late. 
Turning to it and catching at it as a drown- 
ing man at a straw, he opened it at random. 
The leaves parted at the 121st Psalm, and 
his eyes fell, as he glanced at the page, 
on these words, " The Lord shall preserve 
thee from all evil : he shall preserve th}' 
soul." 

The utterance seemed like a direct reve- 
lation from the skies. The boy felt as though 
there was One who had taken knowledge of 
his destitute estate, his fears, his remorse, 
his sorrow, his anxiet}^ his cry for help. 



13S HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

The words got hold of him, and he got hold 
of the words with a grip that has never 
ceased from that day to this. The vows 
made in that hour of danger and trouble 
were never forgotten. While brooding on 
the passage so strangely applicable to his 
time of peril and want his heart was light- 
ened, and at least a part of the burden was 
rolled away. He had scarcely put up the 
book and buckled on his sword before all 
along the line the order ran, " Fall in, 
men ! " and the battle was on. 

Through days of struggle on the battle- 
field and days of waiting in camp, through 
a life full of courage as pastor and editor, 
that one hour in Rev. Dr. Jesse Bowman 
Young's life has shone the most resplendent 
of all. 



THE HEROINE OF A LEPER COLONY. 139 



XXIV. 

The Heroine of a Leper Colony. 

ITITARY REED was an Ohio school-teacher, 

If I and a good one, too. She taught ten 
i. years and enjoyed her work, until 
God's call came to her to carry the good 
news of Christ and his salvation to her un- 
fortunate sisters in India. The call was so 
clear that she could not resist it, and so, 
thirteen yekrs ago, she found herself in 
charge of zenana work in Cawnpore. She 
had but fairly become accustomed to her 
daily service when she was taken very ill 
and was sent to Pithora, a healthful spot in 
the Himalayas, for recovery. Only three 
miles from where she stopped was an asylum 
for lepers, and her tender heart yearned in 
sympathy for them when she learned of their 
pitiful lot. Her health being restored, she 
went back to Cawnpore, and there and in 
Gonda put in five years of hard work, coming 
home to America in 1 890, to get her strength 
again in her mother's home. 



I40 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 





Miss Mary Reed, 



THE HEROINE OF A LEPER COLONY. 141 

While at home she began to suffer from a 
peculiarly severe pain in her finger. A 
strange spot also appeared on her cheek, low 
down near the ear, and one day it came over 
her like a flash that leprosy had fastened its 
pitiless fangs in her body. She did not tell 
her mother, but confided her secret to two or 
three friends who could assist her in making 
arrangements to go to that mountain retreat 
at Pithora as a missionary to the lepers. 
She bade her mother farewell, knowing it 
must be fate well forever in this world, and 
bravely set her face toward the East ; in her 
tenderness not permitting the dear ones at 
home to know of her disease until she had 
reached India. 

In order that she might be sure of her 
fate she consulted eminent specialists in 
London and Bombay, who confirmed her 
worst fears. She was indeed a leper. But 
with sublime Christian heroism she went to 
her destiny not with a sad face, but bravely, 
with strong confidence and earnest deter- 
mination to make the very most out of the 
time that yet remained. A friend who 



142 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

traveled with lier on her journey writes 
these beautiful passages : 

" Here and there we held sweet hours of 
communion, and I, who had been accustomed 
to see missionaries seeking America in feeble 
condition, could not refrain from asking if 
it was right for her to return to India at an 
unfavorable season, before her health was 
established. Her lips quivered, but her 
gentle, pleading voice grew steady as she 
replied, ' My Father knows the way I go, 
and I am sure it is the right way;' and at 
another time she said, ' I am returning to 
India under conditions such as no other mis- 
sionary ever experienced.' 

' ' It was in Paris that she said one evening, 
' If I thought it was right, and you would 
promise never to speak of it until you heard 
it in some other way, I should tell you my 
story.' I told her if aught in me inspired 
her confidence, that was the surest safeguard 
of her secret. 

* ' On memory's walls there will hang 
while time lasts for me the picture of that 
scene. A wax taper burned dimly on the 



THE HEROINE OF A LEPER COLONY. 143 

table beside her open Bible — that Book of all 
books, from whose pages she received daily 
coiisokition ; and while, without, Paris was 
turning' night to day witli light and music 
and wine, within, Mary Reed's gentle voice, 
faltering onl}- at her mother's name and com- 
ing sorrow, told the secret of her affliction. 

"As my throbbing heart caught its first 
glimpse of her meaning I covered my face 
to shut out the swiftly-rising vision of her 
future, even to the bitter end, and almost in 
agony I cfied out, ' O, not that! Do not 
tell me that has come to you ! ' . . . 

" I come with sorrow to my last evening 
with Miss Reed. I sat in the shadow, and 
she where the full moon rising over the 
snowy mountains just touched her pale, 
sweet face with a glory that loved to linger. 
Again I hear her voice in song : 

" ' Straight to my home above 

I travel cahnly on, 
And sing^ in life or death, 

My Lord, thy will be done. ' 

"On the shores of lovely Lake Lucerne, 
hand clasped hand for the last time on earth, 



144 HEROIC PERSOxNALITIES. 

and with eyes blinded by gathering tears, 
our farewells whispered : * God be with you 
till we meet again.' " 

Miss Reed went directly to the leper 
asylum at Pithora, and, although for a time 
the disease made rapid progress, and she 
suffered a great deal, she bore all without 
murmuring. Her letters home were full of 
the sublime confidence and unfading joy of 
the Christ whose banner she is bearing to 
victorious conquest among the jDoor lepers 
of the Himalayas. Think of the glor}" of 
the splendid triumphs of faith in this Amer- 
ican girl, ten thousand miles from home, 
slowly dying from a terrible disease in a 
leper colony in India, who could write home 
one August morning sentences like this : 
' ' I could not tie myself down to my writing- 
desk this morning in quietness of heart till 
I first sat down at my dear organ, and played 
and sang, with all the thirteen stops out, ' I 
am dwelling on the mountain where the 
golden sunlight gleams.' " 

What- wonder that God has given Mary 
Reed wonderful evangelistic power among 



THE HEROINE OF A LEPER COLONY. 145 

the lepers under her care, and that there are 
constant conversions among" those who be- 
hold her radiant face, and who breathe the 

atmosphere of her joyous self-sacrifice ! 
10 



146 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XXV. 

From Slave Kitchen to a College Presidency. 

IT seems most fitting that the man who 
above all others is the leader of the negro 
race in America, and who appears to 
have every element of safe and wise leader- 
ship, should be called Washington. As 
George Washington was the father of his 
country, Booker T. Washington gives great 
promise of becoming, in a very real sense, 
the father of his race in industrial freedom 
in this country. 

Vast sums of money have been consecrated 
by Christian and public-spirited nien and 
women to bring light and hope to the mil- 
lions of the colored people. In response, 
thousands of educated youth are coming out 
of what a generation ago was a race of slaves ; 
but of them all Booker T. Washington is 
the first who has caught the ear of mankind, 
and shown himself to have not only the graces 
of the orator, but the sagacity, the prophetic 
spirit, and the wisdom of the statesman. 



FROM KITCHEN TO A PRESIDENCY. 147 

His whole life, from the day of his birth 
in a log-kitchen, where his mother was cook 
for the farmhouse, reads like a romance. 




Booker T. Washington. 

In his boyhood he slept on a pallet on the 
dirt floor of the kitchen where he was born, 
and until the close of the war his body was 
clothed simply in a tow shirt. He declares 



148 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

that the hardest thing he ever had to do on 
the plantation was to wear that tow shirt. 
It was made of the roughest part of the flax. 
The tow was so harsh and jagged that when 
he put it on it was like having a hundred 
pins sticking into his chest and back and 
arms. It took him a full month to get a new 
shirt broken in. 

His first great ambition was born in his 
heart by seeing a young colored man reading 
a newspaper to a crowd of his friends, who 
were listening eagerly and looking at the 
reader with expressions of awe and reverence. 
He saw that being able to read gave one a 
higher position, and he at once wanted to 
learn the art. It was two years before he 
had a chance, and that chance would have 
amounted to nothing except to a hero. He 
worked all day, and then walked five miles 
to his teacher's house, and then back home 
again. 

When he was fourteen years of age, and 
while working in a coal mine, he overheard 
some talk of General Armstrong's school for 
colored boys at Hampton , Va. His ambition 



FROM KITCHEN TO A PRESIDENCY. 149 

at once flamed up with the purpose of going 
to that school. He saved up twelve dollars, 
and set out for Hampton. He did not know 
where Hampton was, but, getting the general 
direction, walked that way. He reached 
Richmond, Va., without money, without 
friends, and, having no place to stay at night, 
he walked the streets until midnight, and 
then, being quite worn out, crept under a 
sidewalk and slept till morning. 

This would have discouraged most boys, 
but heroes like Booker Washington are not 
easily discouraged. The next morning he 
hired out to work on a ship that was unload- 
ing pig-iron. He worked on this ship 
through the day, and slept under the side- 
walk at night, till he had earned money 
enough to reach Hampton, where he arrived 
with fifty cents in his pocket. 

He applied at once to General Armstrong 
for an opportunity to work his way through 
the school. That great man sent him to the 
lady principal. vShe gave him a room to 
sweep. He swept it and dusted it three 
times in order to make sure of an entrance 



ISO HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

into the school. Pretty soon the principal 
came in, and, putting her finger on the wall 
and looking in the cracks, said, " I guess 
you'll do for janitor." 

At those words the young man's heart 
leaped for joy. He took care of four or five 
class rooms — swept and dusted them and 
built the fires. He rose at four o'clock in 
order to get his work done and have time to 
study his lessons. 

He would have been a lawyer, save that 
the noble purpose of General Armstrong was 
absorbed by his sensitive nature, and this 
turned him to be the teacher and the leader 
of his people. 

Perhaps the supreme occasion of Booker 
T. Washington's life up to this time — su- 
preme because it was the crisis from which 
he emerged to world-wide reputation and 
honor — was his great oratorical triumph at 
the Atlanta Exposition. An eye witness 
wrote of it : 

"There was a remarkable figure — tall, 
bony, straight as a wSioux chief, high fore- 
head, straight nose, heavy jaws, and strong. 



FROM KITCHEN TO A PRESIDENCY. 151 

determined mouth, with big, white teeth, 
piercing eyes, and a commanding manner. 
The sinews stood out on his bronzed neck, 
and his muscular right arm swung high in 
the air with a lead pencil grasped in the 
clinched brown fist. His voice rang out clear 
and true, and he paused impressively as he 
made each point. Within ten minutes the 
multitude was in an uproar of enthusiasm. 
Handkerchiefs were waved, canes were 
flourished, hats were tossed in the air. 
The fairest ' women of Georgia stood up 
and cheered. It was as if the orator had 
bewitched them." 

It was the chivalry of the white South 
cheering the speech of a black man. It was 
a scene worthy of the greatest artist ! 

God bless Booker T. Washington and his 
great institution at Tuskegee ! And may the 
poet's prophecy, which he quoted at the close 
of his great speech at the tmveiling of the 
Shaw Monument in Boston, be abundantly 
realized in his beloved Southland : 

" They are rising, all are rising — 
The black and the white together." 



152 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XXVI. 
The Birth of Liberty's Hymn. 

{SHALL never forget an afternoon in the 
Boston Theater on the occasion of an 
author's readino-s g-iven in aid of a 
fund for the Longfellow ]\lemorial. Of the 
splendid group that were gathered on the 
platform to read from their own writings 
three of the stars of the greatest magnitude 
have been transferred to the sky above the 
sky. 

James Russell Lowell was a most striking 
figure that afternoon, and read, in addition 
to a short poem of his own composed for 
the occasion, Longfellow's "Building of 
the vShip." He was not a good reader from 
the elocutionist's point of view, but that 
splendid head is photographed on my mind, 
and the tones of his voice come back as 
though I heard them yesterday. 

Oliver "Wendell Holmes, cheerful as al- 
ways, shed gladness from face and eye as 
a bouquet of lilies exhales fragrance. His 



THE BIRTH OF LIBERTY'S HYMN. 153 

reading" of " Dorothy O." gave universal de- 
light. 

George William Curtis, the last of that 
trio of translated literary saints, read from 




Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. 
" Prue and I "' with a graceful dignity which 
clothed him like an atmosphere. 

Among those who still remain none was 
received with more expressions of pleasure, 



154 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

and perhaps no reading aroused more en- 
thusiasm, than Julia Ward Howe and her 
rendering of " The Battle Hymn of the Re- 
public." 

On another occasion I enjoyed her own 
story of how that immortal production was 
conceived : It was in those stormy times of 
1 86 1, when, in company with Dr. S. G. 
Howe, her heroic husband, than whom a 
more daring and benevolent man America 
nev^er produced, ]\Irs. Howe was visiting 
Washington. The city was surrounded on 
every side by soldiers, and they had been 
compelled to make their way to the capital 
through lines of guarding sentries. One 
day, in company with Dr. James Freeman 
Clarke and his wife, Dr. and Mrs. Howe 
were escorted out to the front to see the 
army, but were driven back by a sudden at- 
tack on the part of the enemy. Mrs. Howe 
was greatly impressed by the long lines of 
soldiers and the devotion and enthusiasm 
which they evinced. They were singing as 
they marched "John Brown's Body." James 
Freeman Clarke, seeing Mrs. Howe's deep 



THE BIRTH OF LIBERTY'S HYMN. 155 

emotion, which was mirrored in her intense 
face, said : 

' ' You ought to write some new words to 
go with that tune." 

" I will," she earnestly replied. 

She went back to Washington, went to 
bed, and finally fell asleep. She awoke in 
the night to find her now famous hymn 
forming in her brain. It took such tremen- 
dous hold upon her that she could not wait 
until morning, but got up and Avrote it down 
in the gray dawn. What sublime and 
splendid words she wrote ! There is in 
them the spirit of the old prophets. Noth- 
ing could be grander than the first line : 

" Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." 

In the second verse one sees through her 
eyes the vivid picture she had witnessed in 
her afternoon's visit to the army: 

" I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling 

camps ; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and 

damps ; 
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring 

lamps : 

His day is marching on." 



156 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

In the last two verses there was a trium- 
phant note of daring faith and prophecy that 
was wonderfully contagious, and millions of 
men and women took heart again as they 
read or sang it and caught its optimistic 
note : 

" He has sounded forth tlie trumpet that shall never call 

retreat, 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment 

seat : 
O be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, my 

feet— 

Our God is marching on ! " 

This hymn, which was destined to have 
such world-wide appreciation, won its first 
victory in Libby Prison. It was printed in 
the newspapers, and a copy of a paper con- 
taining it was smuggled into the prison, where 
many hundreds of Northern officers and sol- 
diers were confined, among them being the 
brilliant Chaplain, now Bishop, McCabe. 
The chaplain could sing anything and make 
music out of it, but he seized on this splen- 
did battle hymn with a frenzy of delight. It 
makes the blood in one's veins boil again with 
patriotic enthusiasm to hear him tell how 



THE BIRTH OF LIBERTY'S HYMN. 157 

the tears rained down strong men's cheeks 
as they sang in the Southern prison, far 
away from home and friends, those wonder- 
ful closing lines : 

"In the beauty of the liHes Christ was born across the 

sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me : 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men 

free. 

While God is marching on." 



158 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XXVII. 
The Heroism of the Pastor. 

THE life of a true Christian minister is like 
an iceberg at sea, in that by far the 
largest portion of it is hid from the 
public gaze. When one thinks of the hero- 
ism of a minister he is likely to think only 
of his faithfulness to conscience and the 
Gospel in his public sermons or addresses. 
There is room enough for heroism there, 
and there have been many conspicuous ex- 
amples of such courage in the past, and, de- 
spite occasional criticisms, I do not believe 
there is any reason to fear that there is a 
letting-down in courageous fidelity on the 
part of the Christian ministry. 

The greatest temptation that comes to the 
minister to be easy and indulgent and lack- 
ing in perfect faithfulness is in the opportu- 
nities of pastoral work. More souls are won 
or lost in hand-to-hand or face-to-face strug- 
gles than in the public congregations. The 
temptation to be a pleasant friend, a genial 



THE HEROISM OF THE PASTOR. 159 

companion, a good fellow, and nothing 
more, to the members of his congregation 
is a most insidious one to many ministers of 
the Gospel. One may be all these and yet 



1 




Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. 

have in addition the crowning grace of he- 
roic loyalty to the great mission of his life — 
to save the souls of his people ; to win them 
to and keep them in personal fellowship with 
Jesus Christ. 



i6o HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

One of the most honored and conspicuous 
examples of such heroism is witnessed in 
the career of that Nestor of the American 
pastorate, Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler. This 
is the more marked in Dr. Cuyler's case be- 
cause he has all those qualities which would 
be likely to tempt one away from what many 
men regard as the drudgery of pastoral 
work. His brilliant service in the Christian 
press is known and read of all men. He is 
at once the most voluminous and brilliant 
of all the contributors of religious articles 
to the newspaper press of the past genera- 
tion. He has always been in great demand 
as a preacher and platform sj^eaker. And 
that, in the face of all this, he has held him- 
self steadily, day by day, through his long 
pastoral career, to faithful pastoral visita- 
tion, in which he has sought with infinite 
tact and sympathy, and yet with fearless 
honesty, to warn and rebuke and win men 
to Christ, is an illustration of the highest 
heroism. 

The result is that there is many a home 
in Brooklyn to-day where the family altar 



THE HEROISM OF THE PASTOR. i6i 

established, and where Christ reigns su- 
preme, that never could have been captured 
even by Dr. Cuyler's vivid and forceful 
sermons, but was stormed and won by 
that persistent personality that rang the 
door bell again and again, and reinforced 
the truth proclaimed on the Sabbath by pun- 
gent, heart-searching conversation. Many 
and many a young man in the "City of 
Churches " has said to me, while his face 
glowed with a tender light, " I am one of 
Dr. Cuyler s boys ; " and when these " boys " 
have come to be grayheaded grandsires, 
long after the good doctor is w^earing his 
crown in heaven, they will still recall with 
loving reminiscence the pastor who knew all 
their names in the big church and made all 
the children feel that they were his boys and 
his girls. 

In a conversation about pastoral work the 
good doctor once said to me that, while a 
sermon scattered like a shotgun, private con- 
versation could be sent straight to its mark, 
like the ball from a rifle. He relates how 
he once spent an evening in a vain endeavor 



i62 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

to bring a man to a decision for Christ. As 
he was about to take his departure the gen- 
tleman whom he had been seeking to win 
took him up stairs to the nursery to show 
the faithful pastor his beautiful children in 
their cribs. This was the doctor's golden 
opportunity. After looking on the little 
sleepers for a moment with loving admira- 
tion he turned to his host and said, tenderly, 
" Do you mean that these sweet children 
shall never have any help from their father 
to get to heaven ? " The arrow went straight 
to its mark. The man was deeply moved, 
and in a few weeks became an active mem- 
ber of the church. 

Another instance shows Dr. Cuyler's min- 
gled tact and courage in seizing upon an 
opportunity to carry his point for the good 
of a man's soul. He had called on a rich 
merchant in New York on a very cold win- 
ter evening. As the door opened for him 
to leave the piercing wind swept into the 
hallway, and he said, " What an awful night 
for the poor! " The merchant shivered at 
the remark, and, asking him to wait a 



THE HEROISM OF THE PASTOR. 163 

moment, stepped to liis library and brought 
back a roll of bank bills, saying, " Please 
hand these for me to the poorest people you 
know." A few days later Dr. Cuyler wrote 
to the merchant, expressing the grateful 
thanks of some poor families whom his 
bounty had relieved in their great distress, 
and added, " How is it that a man who is 
so kind to his fellow-creatures has always 
been so unkind to his Saviour as to refuse 
him his heart? " That single sentence was 
blessed of God to the merchant's salvation. 
He immediately sent for Dr. Cuyler to come 
and talk with him, and at once gave his 
heart to the Master. He has been a most 
valuable and gracious Christian man ever 
since. He assured Dr. Cuyler that he was 
the first person that had talked to him about 
his soul in nearly twenty years. The hero- 
ism of the pastor did more than a thousand 
sermons had been able to do to win him to 
open loyalty to Christ. 

The best part of it all is that this kind of 
heroism is within the reach of every living 
ambassador of the Lord. 



i64 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



K 



XXVIII. 
"Mother Stewart's" First Glass. 
LTHOUGH Mrs. Thompson, of Hillsboro, 
O., is known as tlie mother of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 




" Mother Stewart." 



the famous "Mother Stewart," of Spring-- 
field, in the same State, who was known in the 
days of her prime as " The Wendell Phillips 



"MOTHER STEWART'S" FIRST GLASS. 165 

in Petticoats," was the immediate cause of 
the term, "Temperance Crusade," which 
clung to the early stages of the movement of 
the women for ' ' God and home and native 
land." 

One saloon in Springfield was just oppo- 
site one of the leading churches, and from the 
house where " Mother Stewart " was living 
she could see the throng of men going there 
in defiance of law. The preacher could 
stand in his pulpit and see the people passing 
into the saloon during his sermon, and yet 
none of the men took hold of the matter to 
get evidence against the saloon keeper and 
make him obey the law. The incident that 
stirred "Mother Stewart" up to act for her- 
self was the si^ht of a man carrying a sweet- 
looking babe in his arms as he went into the 
saloon on vSunday morning to get his dram. 

" If I had a disguise, I would go in there," 
she said, and asked her landlady if she could 
furnish her one. The woman thought a 
moment, and then replied, "Yes, I can;" 
and brought a large waterproof circular that 
enveloped her to her feet. She took off her 



i66 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

glasses, put back her hair, and donned the 
outfit. She looked like a very respectable 
old Irish woman. As she passed out she 
turned to the lady and her daughter and 
said, " O, now pray for me as you never 
prayed before in your lives! " 

' ' Mother Stewart " says she was not think- 
ing of danger, but felt buoyed as if she was 
treading on the air. She passed the third 
door before reaching the saloon where the 
drinking was going on. There were young 
men standing at the counter drinking, and 
some older men sitting about the place. 
She desired to make two cases at the same 
time against the saloon keeper — one for sell- 
ing distilled liquors by the glass to be drunk 
on the premises, under the State law, and 
the other for selling on Sunday, under the 
city ordinance. But she was afraid to ask 
for whisky or brandy, lest she might be 
suspected as a spy. She asked the bartender 
if she could have something to drink. He 
asked what she wanted. At a venture she 
asked if he had any sherry wine. He set a 
bottle and two small glasses on the counter, 



"MOTHER STEWART'S" FIRST GLASS. 167 

one having a little water in it. She did not 
understand what the water meant; still, she 
picked up the bottle and started to pour out 
the wine, but as her hand trembled, and as 
she wanted to implicate the saloon keeper as 
much as possible, she requested him to pour 
it out for her, remarking that she felt rather 
badly. So he poured it out for her and she 
asked the price, and he said a dime, which 
she laid down, and, picking up the glass, 
walked out. 

On the Tuesday evening following that 
Sunday morning ' ' Mother Stewart " spoke in 
the church opposite the saloon to an audience 
that packed it to the doors. Taking her 
glass of wine, she exhibited it to the people 
and told the story, " How I bought my first 
glass of liquor." 

That was the beginning of the Temper- 
ance Crusade in the city of Springfield, 
which reached large proportions and did a 
great amount of good. It was the editor of 
the Journal, of Dayton, O., who named the 
new movement. He wrote: " One woman 
in vSpringfield is disturbing the whole city — 



i68 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

not an unusual thing for a woman to do, 
however, as they have in times past changed 
the course of whole empires. The lady to 
whom we refer is Mrs. Stewart, who is on a 
Temperance Crusade against liquor selling. 
She is determined to banish the trade from 
Springfield, and has got herself reinforced 
by a battalion of resolute women who are 
making it hot for the saloon keepers." 

And so it was out of the heroism of one 
motherly woman that the famous phrase, 
" The Temperance Crusade," was born. 



THE CALL OF GOD. 169 



XXIX. 

The Call of God. 
0[OMEHOW, somewhere, some time, God 
Irj speaks to everyone of us, calling us 
* out of our indifference, to give him our 
hearts. We may refuse, for we are not 
mere machines, but we do so at our peril. 
He does not call us all in the same way. 
The call came to vSamuel as a little child, in 
the old Jewish tabernacle, in the midnight. 
It came to Moses, on the back of Mount Ho- 
reb, as he herded his father-in-law's sheep. 
It came to Elisha as he was plowing in the 
field. It came to Paul on the highway at 
noon. 

I have recently listened to a stor}^ of such 
a call that came to a boy on the bottom of 
the Ohio River, with the soiled current flow- 
ing above him, when he was in imminent 
danger of his life. A group of lads were in 
swimming where the Ohio cuts along the 
line of West Virginia. They were diving 
from the deck of a small boat or float near 



lyo 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



the shore, endeavoring to dive as far down 
stream as possible without coming up for 
breath. Just beyond them, farther out in 




Rev. George C. Wilding, D.D. 

the river, were a half dozen large coal 
barges or scows. One of the lads, the hero 
of our present story, dived from the deck 
of the float, and, full of ambition to excel 



THE CALL OF GOD. 171 

all the other divers of the company, aimed to 
go directly down the river with the current ; 
but in some way he turned slightly toward 
the right hand. When his breath was 
about exhausted, and he began to feel that 
he must come to the surface for air, he began 
to rise, and came upward rapidly. To his 
surprise and horror his head struck against 
something hard. 

He soon realized that he was beneath one 
of the large coal barges. The blow had 
confused him, and he could not determine 
which way he had come. It flashed raj^idly 
through his mind that there was an area of 
coal barges in three directions and open 
water in the other ; but which was the direc- 
tion of escape he could not make out. Like 
lightning came the thought that there were 
three chances for death and but one for life, 
and that he was uncertain as to the way of 
life. 

During these quick minutes, or rather 
seconds, of electric-like thought there un- 
rolled before the eyes of his soul a vivid 
panorama of his entire moral life up to that 



172 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

moment. There did not seem to be haste. 
He saw it in itemized detail ; nothing seemed 
to be omitted, and the most trivial events 
stood out with marvelous clearness ; each 
act and thought of selfish gratification, of 
disobedience, of wantonness — none were 
missing. And all these accusing deeds were 
revealed in their proper moral environment 
and background. No one will ever be more 
clearly self-condemned on the day of judg- 
ment, when an assembled world is gathered 
before the great white throne, than was 
that West Virginia lad struggling face to 
face with death at the bottom of the Ohio 
River that summer afternoon. 

It is amazing to him, grown now to a man 
of middle age, to remember how easily and 
clearly he could study and analyze all this, 
as, with every faculty alert, he was intently 
planning for safety and deliverance. He 
felt if he could only know which way the 
current was flowing, he would soon find his 
way out. Suddenly he remembered having 
read somewhere that the current of a stream 
flows stronger at the bottom than at the top. 



THE CALL OF GOD. 173 

He instantly acted on his thought, and 
quickly dived to the bottom of the river. 
He at once thrust his fingers into the soft 
sediment, and he could, by slowly turning 
his hands around, feel the movement of the 
current between his fingers. The sensation 
of that current sent the blood tingling 
through his veins, for with it came the 
chance for life. He now knew the way to 
the shore. Gathering himself for the effort, 
he struck, out with all his remaining 
strength. When he came to the surface he 
was in the open air. There were the green 
trees, the blue sky, the fresh air, and the 
splash and cries of the noisy boys. How 
beautiful it all looked, and how melodious 
that babel of sounds ! 

He swam feebly to the shore and crawled- 
upon a sunny sandbank in a collapsed con- 
dition. He swam no more that day, but 
soon walked home a thoughtful, wiser, and 
much older boy. He recognized the call of 
God, and he has followed it from that day. 
That lad to-day is Dr. George C. AVilding, 
the eloquent and popular pastor of Hedding 



174 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Church, in Jersey City. He has been a wide 
traveler, and once climbed to the snow- 
capped peak of Mount Hood and looked far 
and wide over the glorious panorama of for- 
est and river and mountains of the Northern 
Sierras; but Dr. Wilding still claims that 
the highest vision-point and the widest out- 
look of his life was obtained, not from the 
pinnacle of Mount Hood, but beneath a coal 
barge in the muddy bottom of the Ohio 
River. 



MOTHER 15ICKERDYKE." 175 



XXX. 

"Mother Bickerdyke." 

THE HEROINE OE THE GRAND ARMY OE THE 
REPUBLIC. 

'ARY A. BICKERDYKE, universally 
known as " Mother Bickerdyke," the 
unchallenged heroine of the Grand 
Army of the Republic, for whom every sol- 
dier has a tender place in his heart, is still 
living, doing' what she can for " the boys, " 
in Bunkerhill, Kan. A letter from her, 
breathing the spirit of a generation ago, lies 
before me while I write. 

" Mother Bickerdyke " was called of God to 
her work as truly as ever minister Avas called 
to the pulpit, or leaders were reared up bv 
Divine Providence for a great people. Her 
marvelous work for the wounded soldiers 
was a labor of love, and her heroism was 
born of self-sacrificing devotion that knew 
no limit. 

After the battle of vShiloh " Mother Bick- 
erdyke " was found one day by one of the 



176 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



surgeons wrapped in the gray overcoat of a 
Confederate officer, for slie had disposed of 
her shawl to some poor fellow who needed 
it. She was wearing a soft slouch hat, 




Mary A. Bickerdyke. 

having lost her usual shaker bonnet. Her 
kettles had been set up, the fire kindled 
underneath, and she was dispensing hot soup, 
tea, crackers, and other refreshments to the 
shivering, fainting, wounded men. 

" Where did you get these articles? " the 



"MOTHER BICKERDYKE." 177 

surgeon inquired, "and under whose au- 
thority are you at work? " 

She paid no heed to his questions, and 
probably did not hear tliem, so completely 
absorbed was she in her work of mercy. 
Watching her with admiration for her skill, 
administrative ability, and intelligence — for 
she not only fed the wounded men, but 
dressed their wounds in many cases — the 
doctor approached her again : 

" Madam ,^ you seem to combine in your- 
self a sick-diet kitchen and a medical staff. 
May I inquire under whose authority you 
are working? " 

Without pausing in her work she blurted 
out, " I have received my authority from the 
Lord God Almighty ; have you anything that 
ranks higher than that?" As a matter of 
fact, she held no position whatever at that 
time. She was only a volunteer nurse, and 
had not yet received an appointment; but 
her answ^er revealed the real .spirit and pur- 
pose of the noble woman. 

' ' Mother Bickerdyke " was always great in 

an emergency. While stationed at Memphis 
12 



178 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

she found that the people in the enemy's 
country were charging enormous prices for 
milk and eggs, and that the most useless 
produce was being received for hospital 
supplies. One day she exclaimed to the 
doctor: " Do you know we are paying fifty 
cents for every quart of milk we use? and do 
you know it is such poor stuff — two thirds 
chalk and water — -that if you should pour 
it into the trough of a respectable pig at 
home, he would turn up his nose and run off, 
squealing in disgust? " 

"Well, what can we do about it? " asked 
the doctor. 

" If you'll give me thirty days' furlough 
and transportation, I'll go home and get all 
the milk and eggs that the Memphis hos- 
pitals can use." 

"Get milk and eggs! Why, you could 
not bring them down here if the North 
would give you all it has. A barrel of eggs 
would spoil this warm weather before it 
could readi us ; and how on earth could you 
bring milk? " 

" But I'll bring down the milk and eo-or 



"MOTHER BICKERDYKE." 179 

producers. I'll get cows and hens, and we'll 
have milk and eggs of our own. The folks 
at home, doctor, will give us all the hens 
and cows we need for the use of these 
hospitals, and jump at the chance to do it. 
- You needn't laugh or shake your head ! " as 
he turned awa}^ amused and incredulous. 
" I tell you the people at the North ache to 
do something for the looys down here, and I 
can get fifty cows in Illinois alone, for just 
the asking." 

" Pshaw! pshaw I " said the doctor, " you 
w^ould be laughed at from one end of the 
country to the other if you should go on so 
wild an errand." 

"Fiddlesticks! who cares for that? Give 
me a furlough and transportation, and let 
me try it." 

When " Mother Bickerdyke " was in that 
mood there was only one way out, and North 
she went. She was escorted as far as vSt. 
Louis by several hundred cripples, every one 
of whom had lost either a leg or an arm. 
These she saw placed in hospitals, and then 
went to Chicago. Jacob Strawn, a big- 



i8o HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

hearted farmer, with a few of his neighbors, 
gave her a hundred cows at once. In a week 
after her call rang out the rooms of the 
Sanitary Commission in Chicago were trans- 
formed into a huge hennery. 

Before her thirty days' leave of absence 
was ended "Mother Bickerdyke " returned 
to Memphis in triumph, amidst the lowing of 
a hundred cows and the cackling of a thou- 
sand hens. Contrabands were detailed to 
take charge of them ; and after that there 
was an abundance of fresh milk and eggs for 
the use of the hospitals. 

"Mother Bickerdyke" has by no means 
lost her interest in the old soldier since the 
war. Mary A. Livermore relates how she 
expostulated with the dear old woman for 
getting wet on a stormy day in trying to be- 
friend an old soldier who had been arraigned 
in the police court on charge of drunken- 
ness. The old heroine bridled in a minute, 
and retorted, "Mary Livermore, I want 
you to understand that so long as an old 
soldier is top of ground he can be sure of 
two friends — God and me." 



THE HEROISM OF THE PLODDER. i8l 



T 



XXXI. 

The Heroism of the Plodder. 
O my mind there is on the face of the 
globe no grander specimen of the hero 
than a boy in that awkward epoch when 




Samuel Wilson Naylor. 

he can find no place for his hands and his 
trousers are never long enough to cover his 
legs, in the midst of pinching poverty, with 



i82 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

seemingly no chance for education or culture, 
who, in such discouraging conditions, fights 
with clinched teeth his toilsome way through 
the academy and college and professional 
school, and stands, ten years later, a splen- 
didly - educated, broadly - cultivated, noble 
Christian man of the world. 

I am going to tell the story of one such 
hero, because he is a type of thousands of 
boys and girls in every State of the Union 
who have heroic stuff in them. 

Samuel Wilson Navlor began his fiofht for 
an education in 1883, in Washburn College, 
at Topeka, Kan., in the preparatory depart- 
ment. His family lived on a farm, and for 
the first half year he boarded at home and 
went to and fro, five miles every day, and 
looked after the farm chores night and 
morning. The rest of the year he did cler- 
ical work for a man who gave him in pay- 
ment a humble room and two meals a day. 
The third meal, during that time, was al- 
ways in demand, but was ever a doubtful 
quantity, and sometimes did not appear. 
As he had not been able to take Latin 



THE HEROISM OF THE PLODDER. 183 

during his first year's course, he made up the 
entire year's work in that language while 
following a plow during the summer vaca- 
tion. During 1884 he kept " bachelor's 
hall " with a young neighbor, the tw^o boys 
doing their owm cooking. In 1885 he was 
elected mail carrier by the students, and 
earned enough in this service to pay his 
board. 

In 1886-87 he was elected steward of the 
boarding club, which again paid for his 
board. He was also, this year, the business 
manager of the college paper, and handled 
it with such care and efficiency that, in ad- 
dition to paying all his own way, he was 
able to refund some money which he had 
borrowed of relatives during the previous 
years. During 1888 he continued his con- 
nection with the college paper and was sec- 
retary of the Senate Committee of the State 
Legislature, for whom he worked only out- 
of-school hours. In his senior year, 1889, 
in addition to the business management of 
the paper, he was United States Census enu- 
merator. 



l84 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

Note that during these years, while he 
was supporting himself by this hard work, 
he was by no means lagging in his studies. 
He won the highest honors in the society 
debate at the oratorical contest. 

In 1890 he went to the Boston University 
School of Theology. During the first year 
he was assistant book agent, steward of the 
boarding club, and occasionally supplied the 
pulpit of some village church. In 1891 he 
supported himself in the same way as the 
previous year, and during the latter part of 
the year, with three others, organized the 
Boston University Settlement, which is yet 
a flourishing institution in the old historic 
North End of Boston. In 1892 he was field 
secretary of the University Settlement, which 
secured his support at the University, and he 
closed that year by carrying off the honors 
as the chosen orator of his class. 

Let no one imagine that there was no 
chance for social recognition or literary work 
under these trying circumstances. In these 
years he was several times president of a 
literary society ; was president of the college 



THE HEROISM OF THE PLODDER. 185 

Young Men's Christian Association during 
his entire collegiate course of four years ; 
delegate to Moody's Summer School, North- 
field, Mass. ; and during his senior year was 
corresponding secretary for the Student Vol- 
unteer Movement for Kansas. 

At the end of this ten years' constant cul- 
tivation of his mind and heart he was in 
debt only two hundred dollars. This Avas 
soon wiped out, and after two years in the 
pastorate, desiring still further to fit himself 
for usefulness, he spent a year in foreign 
travel, visiting Egypt, the Upper Nile, and 
making a long tour in the Holy Land. He 
made almost the entire round in Europe on 
his bicycle, traveling in that economical way 
over two thousand miles. 

Now, this was not genius at all — simply a 
straightforward, honest lad, with pluck and 
determination and genuine Christian spirit, 
who knew how to plod and dig, and who 
would not be proud of his log-book as I have 
given it to you. Every church he may serve 
in the days to come will feel the buoyant 
strength that he has gained by these years 



i86 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

of "blessed drudgery." God bless all the 
homespun heroes who are making their 
brave fight for a cultured and larger per- 
sonality ! 



A MISSION TO THE RICH. 187 



XXXII. 

A Mission to the Rich. 

IT may well be doubted if there is any 
more thoroughly Christlike work for 
humanity being accomplished in our time 
than that which clusters about the social 
settlements in some of our large cities. The 
very conception is in the spirit of Him who 
was rich and yet for our sakes became poor; 
who put aside the glory of heaven and came 
down to earth, bringing all liis resources of 
nobility of character, of patience and gentle- 
ness of soul, to shed them as a flower does 
fragrance for the poorest and weakest and 
meanest of humankind. vSo the social 
settlement, placed purposely in the very 
heart of the slums, where human life is 
hardest to bear and a glimpse of anything 
pure and holy is rare indeed, is peopled 
usually by men and women of culture and 
refinement, many of whom leave homes of 
luxury and wealth and for Christ's dear 
sake deny themselves the happiness of 



i88 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

associations to whicli they have been born 
and reared in order tliatby personal example 
and contact they may make the Christ-life 




Miss Jane Addams. 

seem possible and beautiful to the most 
hopeless of their brothers and sisters. 

One of the most remarkable of these efforts 
to bring Christianity incarnate into the 
heart of poverty and sin is Hull House, 



A MISSION TO THE RICH. 189 

Chicago, and the angel of Hull House is 
]\Iiss Jane Addams. It is now ten years 
since this institution was founded, and it 
has become one of the great institutions of 
the city. 

Miss Addams' s first idea in starting the 
work Avas not so much to help the poor as to 
help the rich. Her large soul ached for the 
pitiful idleness of many wealthy society girls 
who seemed to have no worthy object in life, 
and who sa,dly needed to be brought into 
practical sympathy with their fellow-crea- 
tures. It has always been her belief that 
the work of Hull House benefits the teachers 
and workers quite as much as it does the 
poor people for whom the service is 
rendered. Some of the most enthusiastic 
and effective workers in this Christlike serv- 
ice are young women who up to the time 
of their becoming interested in this work 
had led merely frivolous lives. It has devel- 
oped and ennobled and glorified them as 
much as it has blessed any of the wretched 
girls to whom they have ministered with such 
tenderness and devotion. 



I90 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

These young women have found that 
every gift and talent they possess can be 
brought somewhere into play in this new 
work. One girl who has been all her life 
accustomed to the highest world of fashion, 
and who is an expert in social matters, has 
displayed a remarkable ability in imparting 
graceful and elegant manners to young street 
hoodlums. Another young college girl ut- 
terly annihilated the taste for dime novels 
among the slum boys by a course of talks on 
the Legends of Charlemagne and his Pal- 
adins, which she made so interesting that 
these urchins, who had never heard an his- 
torical lecture in their lives, listened breath- 
less and fascinated. Roland was the hero 
whose adventures particularly delighted 
them. After the narration of his death the 
bo3'S hung about the room disconsolate. At 
last one remarked, sorrowfully. "Well, it is 
no use coming any more, Roland's dead! 

But Hull House is not dead; its devoted 
workers are alive to their finger-tips, and 
there are brought fresh out of the treasuries 
of the minds and hearts of these self-sacrifi- 



A MISSION' TO THE RICH. 191 

cing women things new and old that capture 
the imagination and hold the affection and 
enthusiasm of the ^•igo^ous young life that 
would be otherwise running wild into evil. 
The whole object is to present the possibil- 
ities of a Christian life, pure and noble, 
beautiful and gracious, before eyes to whom 
such a life is unknown. 

Like all other good things. Hull House 
has been a growth. Ten rears ago it con- 
sisted of only two young women, who rented 
a few rooms in a building that they shared 
with a desk manufactory. But a wonderful 
transformation has been wrought. First, 
the desk factor}' vanished, and Miss Addams 
and Miss Starr, with their fellow-residents, 
occupied the whole of the old-fashioned Hull 
homestead. Then a wing was added, con- 
taining club rooms and lecture halls and 
g\-mnasiums : then another wing at the rear 
for a restaurant and public baker\\ where 
soups, cooked meats, and other edibles could 
be had all ready to take home for less than 
the price of bu}*ing and preparing the raw 
material. Then a children's house was built 



192 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

to accommodate the day nursery, the kinder- 
garten, and the picture gallery. This great 
mass of buildings, with all its beehive of 
earnest workers and gracious influences, has 
been the outcome of the intelligent love and 
good will of two Christian women. 

Are there not other men and women of 
wealth, of college breeding, of rich gifts of 
conversation, or of teaching, or of helpful 
fellowship, who are weary of simply eating 
and drinking and keeping themselves sleek 
and comfortable like a fat ox, who will take 
courage and heart at this glimpse of a won- 
derfully rich investment in humanity? For, 
after all, the richest investment one can 
make in this world, the one that is sure to 
pay back the largest dividends on the capital 
put in, is an investment in humanity. No 
other soil is so fertile, or will yield such 
speedy and satisfactory return. 



THE HEROISM OF FAITH. 193 



XXXIII. 
The Heroism of Faith. 

DR. J. WILBUR CHAPMAN, the well- 
known evangelist, belongs to the roll 
of honor on which is inscribed the 
modern " Heroes of the Faith." Dr. Chaj^- 
man's dominant characteristic is the heroic 
quality of his faith. He firmly believes 
that God isiable and willing, at any moment, 
to save any man, rich or poor, learned or 
ignorant, and instantly transform him from 
a penitent sinner to a righteous saint. A 
great many people profess to believe that ; 
but when a man really does believe it, and 
goes about the world living up to his faith, 
he is a hero. 

Dr. Chapman has great success in reach- 
ing men. He is such a simple, straightfor- 
ward, manly man himself that men believe 
in him at first glance. At a young men's 
meeting in Saginaw, Mich., two or three 
years since, Dr. Chapman was urging inen 

to an immediate decision for Christ. Colonel 
13 



194 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



Bliss, an ex-member of Congress, and one 
of the wealthiest and most influential citi- 
zens of the State, had but just entered the 
room when the impassioned appeal of the 




Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman. 



evangelist, " Do it now! Do it now! " fell 
on his ears. With a sudden impulse, mak- 
ing a decision on the instant. Colonel Bliss 
arose and simply said, " I will." The whole 



THE HEROISM OF FAITH. 195 

question of his salvation was settled. The 
battle he had been waging for years was 
won. Before a great assemblage of men in 
Detroit, a few weeks later, he gave this tes- 
timony : "I was deeply convicted in my 
early life — but the war came on. I enlisted 
and stifled my convictions for the time 
being. Then I was taken prisoner, and de- 
termined that if I was only released, I would 
be a Christian. My release came, and I 
said, ' I will wait till the war is ended ' — and 
that came to pass and I was still undecided. 
Then I said, ' I must give my attention to 
business, and after I have made a compe- 
tency I will be a Christian.' I achieved that, 
but I still delayed. Every day it seemed to 
grow more difficult, and I had almost lost 
hope. My conversion seemed an impossi- 
bility. But one night I heard Dr. Chapman 
say the three words, ' Do it now ! ' And I 
said, * That is a message for me,' and with 
a tremendous effort I stood up and said, ' I 
will! ' Immediately I received a blessing. 
God certainly revealed himself to me, and 
from that day I have been more than happy. 



196 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

And, gentlemen," he said to the five thou- 
sand men present, " if you would have the 
easiest time — the safest time — in fact, God's 
time to be saved, I repeat the words, ' Do it 
now ! 

Colonel Bliss has been a most devoted, 
enthusiastic Christian ever since. 

A very different man was John Pearl, 
who for thirteen years had scarcely drawn 
a sober breath, and for the same length of 
time had not been in the church, except oc- 
casionally to attend a funeral. His family 
had been broken up through his sin, and he 
had led as dissolute a life as one could pos- 
sibly follow. All his earnings were spent 
in the saloons; he was profane, and sinful, 
in fact, in almost every way common to 
man. People who knew him thought him 
hardly worth saving, and so he had been 
practically forsaken by Christians. 

Dr. Chapman was holding revival meet- 
ings in Greenbush, just across the river from 
Albany, N. Y. One evening John Pearl 
was sitting in a saloon when some one said, 
" Chapman is preaching in the Presbyterian 



THE HEROISM OF FAITH. 197 

church to-night." This arrested Pearl's at- 
tention, and he said, " I'll go and hear him," 
The bystanders laughed at the idea of old 
John Pearl going to church, but he started 
out. When he reached the church his cour- 
aofe failed him. He said to himself, " No 
one will want me. I am nothing but a poor 
drunkard. I am dirty and almost in rags." 
And so he hurried away to the saloon. But 
God would not let him go, and he was soon 
back again at the church door. Almost 
before he knew it he was in the church and 
in the second pew from the front. For a 
part of the service he seemed stupefied ; then 
he began to give the truth his attention, and 
when the invitation was given his was the 
first hand lifted. In the after meeting he 
was the first to fall upon his knees ; there 
God met him, and he was wonderfully con- 
verted. 

John Pearl became a member of the 
church, and has been a faithful, loyal fol- 
lower of Jesus Christ ever since. Only once 
has he been tempted to drink. One day the 
devil made a dead set for his soul. It 



198 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

seemed as if the tiger thirst for strong drink 
would drive him wild, but, like Joseph in 
Potiphar's palace, he fled from the face of 
his temptation, and, going home, he cried 
unto God for deliverance. His cry was 
heard, and from that day until this he has 
been entirely free from the appetite for 
strong drink. His life seems to flow on as 
sweetly and securely as if he had never 
known thirteen years of misery and wretch- 
edness. 

I have chosen these two cases, standing 
in such strong contrast, out of the thousands 
of men who have been led to Christ through 
the charming brotherliness and heroic faith 
of Dr. Chapman's ministry. 



CLARA BARTON ON BATTLEFIELD. 199 



XXXIV. 

Clara Barton on the Battlefield. 

THE heroism of ISIiss Clara Barton in 
going to Armenia to carry relief to the 
persecuted Christians of that devoted 
land in an hour so dark with danger that 
strong men feared to trust themselves in the 
power of the inhuman Turk, was so conspic- 
uous as to make in itself a reputation wor- 
thy of a lifetime of service. 

It is well, however, for the young-er por- 
tion of our readers to have their attention 
called to the fact that Miss Barton's fearless 
service in Armenia was but the mature 
flowering of a heroic life. The War of the 
Rebellion brought to the front no character 
more conspicuously brave and self-denying 
than hers. 

Dr. Brockett, in his Heroines of the Rebel- 
lion, relates a circumstance which occurred 
during the battle of Fredericksburg that 
strikingly illustrates the courage of Miss 
Barton in the presence of danger. In the 



200 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

skirmishing of the 12th of December, the 
day preceding the great and disastrous bat- 
tle, a part of the Union troops had crossed 
over to Fredericksburg, and after a brief 




Clara Barton. 

fight had driven back a body of Confeder- 
ates, wounding and capturing a number of 
them, whom tliey sent as prisoners across 
the river to Falmouth, where Miss Barton 
as yet had her camp. The wounded Con- 
federates were brougfht to her for care and 



CLARA BARTON ON BATTLEFIELD. 201 

treatment. Among tliem was a young offi- 
cer, mortally hurt. Though she could not 
save his life, she ministered to him as 
well as she could, partially stanching his 
wound, quenching his raging thirst, and 
endeavoring to make his condition as com- 
fortable as possible. Just at this time an 
orderly arrived with a message from the 
medical director of the Ninth Army Corps, 
requesting her to come over to Fredericks- 
burg and (Organize the hospitals and diet 
kitchens for the corps. The officer heard 
the request, and, beckoning to her, for he 
was too weak to speak aloud, he whispered 
a request that she would not go. vShe re- 
plied that she must do so ; that her duty 
to the corps to wdiich vShe was attached re- 
quired it. " Lady," he replied, " you have 
been very kind to me. You could not save 
my life, but you have endeavored to render 
death easy. I owe it to you to tell you 
what a few hours ago I would have died 
sooner than have revealed. The whole ar- 
rangement of the Confederate troops and 
artillery is intended as a trap for your 



202 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

people. Every street and lane of the city 
is covered by our cannon. They are now 
concealed, and do not reply to the bom- 
bardment of your army because they wish 
to entice you across. When your entire 
army has reached the other side of the 
Rappahannock and attempts to move along 
the streets it will find Fredericksburg only 
a slaughter pen, and not a regiment of 
it will be allowed to escape. Do not go 
over, for you will go to certain death ! " 

While her tender sensibilities prevented 
her from adding to the sufferings of the 
dying man by not apparently heeding 
his warning, Miss Barton did not on ac- 
count of it forego for an instant her in- 
tention of sharing the fortunes of the 
Ninth Corps on the other side of the river. 
The poor fellow was almost gone, and, 
waiting only to close his eyes to the bat- 
tlefields of earth, she crossed on the frail 
bridge and was welcomed with cheers by 
the Ninth Corps, who looked upon her 
as their guardian angel. She remained 
with them until the evening of their re- 



CLARA BARTON ON BATTLEFIELD. 203 

treat, and, with the fidelity of a faithful 
sea captain, who is always the last to leave 
his vessel in time of shipwreck, she refused 
to return until all the wounded men of the 
corps in the hospitals were safely across 
the river. 

At another time Miss Barton arrived in 
the rear of the battle and found that the 
army medical supplies had not come. The 
small stock of dressings was exhausted, and 
the surgeons were trying to make bandages 
of corn husks. Miss Barton opened to them 
her stock of dressings, and proceeded with 
her companions to distribute food among 
the wounded and fainting. When her bread 
was all gone she took the meal in which her 
bottles of medicine had been packed and 
began to make gruel. When this was ex- 
hausted she searched the cellar of a farm- 
house near by and discovered three barrels 
of flour and a bag of salt which the Confed- 
erates had hidden the day before. Kettles 
were found about the house, and she pre- 
pared to make gruel on a large scale, which 
was carried in buckets and distributed alomr 



204 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

the line for miles. Although the battle 
raged fiercely, and her face became as black 
as a Negro's and her lips and throat parched 
with the smoke, she kept her place mixing 
the gruel until nightfall ended the battle. 
But darkness only brought new terror to the 
suffering, for as the night closed in the sur- 
geon in charge at the old farmhouse looked 
despairingly at a bit of candle, and said it 
was the only one on the place ; and no one 
could stir till morning. A thousand men 
lay around dangerously wounded and suffer- 
ing terribly from thirst, and many must die 
before the light of another day. It was a 
fearful thing to die alone and in the dark, 
and no one could move among the wounded 
for fear of stumbling over them. Then it 
was that Miss Barton's forethought and 
womanly housekeeping shone out. She 
gladdened the eyes of the astonished sur- 
geon by bringing out thirty lanterns and an 
abundance of candles which she had thought- 
fully provided for just such an emergency. 
But for those lanterns many a life would 
have ofone out in the darkness that night 



CLARA BARTON ON BATTLEFIELD. 205 

that by their aid was saved to bless home 
circles after the war was ended. 

It will take Clara Barton a long- time after 
she gets to heaven to greet all the people 
who have been comforted and blessed by 
her heroic life. 



2o6 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XXXV. 

The Last of the Hutchinsons. 

OF all that heroic group in which Phillips 
and Lovejoy and Garrison and Whittier 
and many others were shining stars 
there was no more unique inner circle than 
what was known as " The Hutchinson Fam- 
ily," They were not orators, but they were 
sweet singers, who were able to send the 
gospel of liberty into many a heart that was 
locked and barred against the most persua- 
sive key of public speech. 

Mr. John Wallace Hutchinson, the last 
left on earth of that truly brave and pictur- 
esque group, has recently published a Story 
of the Hittchinsons, brimful of fascinating 
reminiscences of a brave and romantic time. 

Mr. Hutchinson tells this story of Henry 
Clay: It was in the year 1848, and "The 
Hutchinsons " were in New York giving 
concerts. Jesse, one of the brothers, wrote 
a new song of Mr. Clay, entitled " Harry 
of the West," and the present survivor wrote 



THE LAST OF THE HUTCHINSONS. 207 

the music for it. This song was prepared 
on their way to New York, and was first 
sung on the boat between New Haven and 
that city. 




John Wallace Hutchinson. 



While in New York they were invited by 
Captain Knight, of the then new and famous 
ship, Henry Clay, to go on board his vessel. 
Complying, they went into the captain's 



2o8 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

cabin, and, standing in a group, they struck 
up their new song. The}' had hardly fin- 
ished when an alderman of the city who was 
on board said to them, enthusiastically, 
' ' You must go and sing that song to Henry 
Clay this afternoon." 

Going ashore, they soon arrived at the 
hotel, where a great reception was taking 
place. The mayor, his chief counselors, 
and their distinguished giiest were just 
about taking their wine at the banquet when 
the singers were ushered in. The mayor at 
once arose, announcing their presence, and 
asked them to sing an appropriate selection. 
The four brothers sang : 

" Come, brothers, now let's hurry out 

To see our honored guest, 
For lo, in every street they shout. 

Brave ' Harry of the West.' 

" For th' glorious day is coming nenr 

When wrong shall be redressed. 
And freedom's star shine bright and cleai 

On ' Harry of the West.' 

" Then hail, all hail, thrice-honored sage, 

Our most distinguished guest ! 
We'll venerate thy good old age, 

Brave ' Harry of the West.' " 



THE LAST OF THE HUTCHINSONS. 209 

While they were singing this song ]\Ir. 
Clay's eyes opened and his chin dropped 
Avith surprise. At the close he arose and 
came to them, saying, " What can I do to 
repay you for this great honor you have 
conferred upon me? " Subsequently he sent 
his wine down to them, but the brave young 
Hutchinsons sent him back word that they 
were teetotalers and could not drink with 
him. It took a good deal more courage to 
do that in 1848 than it would now. On re- 
ceiving their reply Henry Clay arose from 
the table for the second time, and, leaving 
the circle of politicians about him, walked 
across the room, the observed of all observ- 
ers, and said to the young singers, " If I 
were a young man like yourselves, I'd be a 
teetotaler too." 

John Wallace Hutchinson has remained 

faithful to his temperance principles through 

all the 3'ears, and his handsome head, as 

splendid as Nathaniel Hawthorne's, often 

graces the platform of a temperance meeting. 
14 



2IO HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

XXXVI. 
The Deaconesses' Sheet Fund. 

THERE are many kinds of heroism. The 
most common kind and the sort that is 
most readily appreciated is the dashing, 




Mrs. Anna E. Hull. 



ae2fressive onslauQfht on the enem}^ — some 
picturesque undertaking like Sheridan's 



THE DEACONESSES' SHEET FUND. 211 

ride from Winchester, a scene which lends 
itself easily to the canvas of the painter, 
the tongue of the orator, or the pen of the 
poet. Then there is another sort that we 
can all easily understand — the heroism of 
self-sacrifice. There is also the quieter, but 
none the less sublime, heroism of the saint 
in the bondage of affliction — one with a soul 
large and strong and full of divine longing 
for the performance of noble deeds and 
splendid aphievement, that is shut in like 
Joseph in the Egyptian dungeon, or Paul in 
Nero's prison in Rome, or some fragile 
woman chained to her sick bed through 
weary months of lingering illness. 

There is a heroism of still another kind — 
it is the heroic spirit exhibiting itself in lit- 
tle things that may help to sweeten human 
existence. I have just discovered a woman 
illustrating this remarkably helpful sort of 
heroism. 

Mrs. Anna E. Hull is the large-souled 
and genial-natured secretary of the Young 
Woman's Christian Association in the city 
of Cleveland, O. She is one of those strong, 



212 HEROIC PERSONALTIES. 

warm natures which seem to gather as they 
go through youth and middle age rich 
slieaves of experience and wisdom, whicli it 
is tlieir joyous ability to impart to the 
young, who find in them friend and leader. 
I remember that in one of Phillips Brooks's 
great sermons he says that every experience 
of trial and grief we pass through in life 
and come out, by the strength of God, victo- 
rious we are given the key to that trial, and 
are ever after able to unlock it and show 
the way through to others. When I see a 
woman like Mrs. Hull, about whom young 
girls who are away from home and mother 
and the guarding associations of home life 
flock for sympathy and wisdom, I seem to see 
in her cultivated, sympathetic helpfulness 
the shining keys hanging at the girdle that 
are able to unlock many a doorway that 
seems forbidding and lead trembling feet 
through in safety to the brighter life be- 
yond. 

Mrs. Hull was at a Home Missionary 
meeting not long ago, and she heard a little 
talk given by one of the nurse deaconesses 



THE DEACONESSES' SHEET FUND. 213 

concerning a poor sick woman whom slie 
was nursing. The woman was very worthy, 
but extremely poor, not even having sheets 
for the bed. The deaconess went on to re- 
late how often it was the case in the homes 
of the very poor that the luxury of clean 
sheets was unknown, even in cases of severe 
illness. 

The statement of the deaconess was a 
revelation to Mrs. Hull. vShe had known, 
of course, ^that the very poor must suffer 
many privations ; but it had not occurred to 
her that here and there through the city 
were many sufferers who in times of hot 
fever and painful restlessness never knew 
the soothing comfort that comes from draw- 
ing cool, spotless sheets over the fevered 
body. As the good woman listened to the 
story of the deaconess she remembered that 
at that very moment there were some fine 
sheets lying in her trunk, souvenirs from 
her own happy housekeeping days now gone 
by, and she felt ashamed that they should 
be folded away in camphor while God's poor 
children suffered for need of them. 



214 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

She immediately went home and took the 
sheets out and sent them at once to the 
Deaconess Home, Then she put a box on 
her writing desk and marked it " Tlie Dea- 
conesses' Sheet Fund," and the money that 
can be spared goes into it, and her friends 
add to it as tliey can, and' every time enough 
is gathered to buy a pair of sheets they are 
purchased and hemmed and go on their way 
of loving ministration. God bless the Sheet 
Fund and multiply the people who shall en- 
deavor with the same heroic cheerfulness to 
attack the lesser demons that afflict poor hu- 
manity ! 



GRANDPA SAMPSON'S MAIL BAG. 215 



F 



XXXVII. 
Grandpa Sampson's Mail Bag. 
OR more than twenty years Rev. William 
Sampson has been the chaplain and su- 
perintendent of the Children's Aid So- 




Rev. William Sampson. 

ciety and Industrial vSchool and Home in the 
city of Cleveland, O. He was an old man 
when he came, but these twenty years of 



2i6 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

caring for little children have freshened 
him and renewed his youth, so that, though 
the almanac says he is eighty-three, the glow 
of immortal youth is on his heart and in his 
eyes. 

There is no work more fascinating or 
more full of promise and hope for the future 
than that which ministers to the needs of 
poor and homeless children. Every little 
child that comes into a home like this has 
some interesting story. Drunken parents 
and other evils degrade and bring many 
families to poverty and wretchedness. Al- 
though surrounded with vice and misery, the 
child is not to blame. In other cases the 
mother dies and the father is unable to keep 
the children together. Because of these and 
many other reasons little waifs are thrown 
out, and, like the Master who loves them, 
have no place to lay their heads. In his 
spirit, in his dear name, William Sampson 
exults with a mother-like tenderness over 
every such child with as much eagerness as 
a gold miner who has found a precious 



GRANDPA SAMPSON'S MAIL BAG. 217 

In this home they are taught habits of 
cleanliness, civility of manners, respect for 
age, and the sanctity of religious worship, 
together with such industries as are adapted 
to their capacity. Over five thousand chil- 
dren have received instruction and help in 
the years that are gone, and over twenty-six 
hundred of these boys and girls have been 
placed in good homes in different parts of 
the country, where they have had a fair 
chance for ^loble lives. 

These lads and lasses, happily placed in 
good homes, out on the farms and in the 
villages of the great West, shower their lov- 
ing letters on this good man who has been 
such a benediction to them. I have been 
peering into this mail bag, and the letters 
are so fresh and redolent of breezy farm-life 
and sincere childish affection that one can- 
not wonder that Grandpa Sampson renews 
his youth as he reads them. Here is one 
from a boy, from which I take these lines : 
" I had a swamp that brought me $7.25. I 
put it to corn and potatoes, and had four- 
teen bushels of corn and twentv bushels of 



2i8 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

potatoes." Then he adds something about 
the pure life of that country settlement. 
"I want to tell you about my surroundings. 
There is not a man in this locality who has 
any bad habits, such as drink and profane 
language." Not a bad place that for a 
young lad of fourteen ! 

Here is a little girl who bubbles over 
with: " I am happy as a bird, and I go to 
school every day, and I have such a good 
teacher. I sold my lamb and I got three 
dollars for it ; now I have got four dollars 
and twenty cents." 

Here is a pathetic little touch in a letter 
from a little colored boy : ' * How many chil- 
dren have you? How many colored boys 
and girls? I am trying to be good, grand- 
pa, so that when I die I may meet you in 
heaven." 

All through these letters, and at the close 
of every one of them, there are expressions 
like these: " Love to you, grandpa; " " I 
love you, and would like to have your pic- 
ture ; " "I shall always have pleasant mem- 
ories of 5^ou, you dear Grandpa Sampson ; 



GRANDPA SAMPSON'S MAIL BAG. 219 

" Thank God that he raised up Grandpa 
Sampson! " " Lots of love to grandpa! " 
and so on with ever-varying phrase, but 
breathing the same spirit of gratitude and 
love. 

This mail bag is Grandpa Sampson's con- 
stant garden of delight. I never see him 
without thinking how happy this old Christ- 
like hero will be in heaven, where so many 
children are gathering every year. 



220 



HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XXXVIII. 
Before the King. 
[O society of modern times lias done so 
much to develop American women and 
arouse in them the heroic qualities as 
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 



r 




Mary Clement Leavitt. 

Mary Clement Leavitt was the first mes- 
senger to carry the White Ribbon banner 



BEFORE THE KING. 221 

around the world, and proclaim its total-ab- 
stinence gospel in far-away lands. She once 
told me a most interesting story of her visit 
to the King of Siam : Mrs. Leavitt had been 
in Siam for some time, but had had no op- 
portunity to see the king, as his majesty 
was absent from the city. Just before her 
departure, however, the king returned, and 
within six hours he sent her a messenger, 
saying that he would give her an audience 
at six o'clock next day, and ordering Mr. 
Bradley, the English interpreter, the son of 
an American missionary, to attend and in- 
terpret the conversation. Everything in 
Siam goes by order, and not by request. 

Mrs. Leavitt arrived at the exact moment, 
and was shown into an anteroom decorated 
with armor from many countries. The new 
Italian Minister was with his majesty, so 
they had to wait a few minutes. Presently 
they passed up into a room of pinkish 
tinge, ornamented with gold; a smiling 
young gentleman came toward the tem- 
perance orator, and taking her by the hand, 
led her to the center of the room and 



222 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

into the immediate presence of the King of 
Siam. 

The king spoke English well and under- 
stood it perfectly ; but he would not converse 
in a language that his courtiers could not 
understand, so he talked in Siamese through 
an interpreter. 

Their conversation immediately began on 
the purpose of her mission around the world. 
The kinof ag-reed with Mrs. Leavitt that it 
would be well for his kingdom if never a 
drop of liquor should enter it again. He 
was himself a total abstainer, but even his 
example had not been enough to keep his 
half-brothers (there were about seventy of 
them) from following the bad example of 
the foreign diplomats. When the White 
Ribboner suggested to him that he might 
make total abstinence a prerequisite for 
promotion, his majesty, with a smile and 
a peculiar look around upon the thirty-five 
or forty courtiers who were in attendance, 
said : " I have never thought of that. I will 
meditate upon it, and I think I will act upon 
it." In reply to her query, if he could not 



BEFORE THE KING. 223 

prohibit the introduction of liquor into his 
country, he said it would be easy enough 
with China, whence most of it came, but 
with regard to England and France it would 
require deep thought and great diplomacy, 
or the greatest evils would be brought upon 
him. 

Speaking of Christianity, the king turned 
to her and said, " Butyour Christian religion 
allows the use of intoxicating liquor; how, 
then, can you work for its entire suppres- 
sion?" She explained the new line along 
which she was working and in which she 
thoroughly believed, to which his majesty 
responded : " I am very glad to hear this, for 
I have often wondered why a religion so su- 
perior to all others, except as to drink, should 
fall below ours [the Buddhist] and the Mo- 
hammedan in that particular. It is much to 
be hoped that this new view will prevail, 
and that all missionaries will teach it, espe- 
cially in Buddhistic countries." 

The king had learned his English from 
the Bible as his text-book under the in- 
struction of Mr. Bradley, an American mis- 



224 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

sionary. It appeared to Mrs. Leavitt that 
he believed the Christian religion to be the 
true one, and that he wished to see it spread 
in his kingdom, for he said often to the mis- 
sionaries : " Teach as many women and chil- 
dren as you can. It is a good religion for 
women and children. " He was far too 
astute a man not to know that the religion 
which was taught to women and children 
Avould permeate everywhere, but the tenure 
by which he held his throne was the vow he 
had taken on himself to support the religion 
of Buddha. 

At the time of Mrs. Leavitt's visit the 
present king was only a lad of twelve 3'ears, 
and was said to be a very gifted boy. It is 
her opinion that if he inaugurates as many 
reforms as his father did, the kingdom wull 
approach the status of a Christian country. 
Up to the time of his father's reign all 
who came into the presence of the King of 
Siam were required to come creeping on 
hands and knees ; but immediately after his 
coronation when the people came before 
him in this way he took the first one, who 



BEFORE THE KING. 225 

happened to be his uncle, by the hand and 

lifted him up, and forbade anyone ever 

again to come before him in that manner. 

He said, " I am your king, and expect your 

obedience; but I am a man, and must not be 

worshiped." 

Mrs. Leavitt's spirituelle face and earnest 

eyes, in which shines the fire of an undying 

energy, bring to mind the promise in the 

Book of Proverbs concerning the diligent 

soul, that such an one " shall stand before 

kings." 
15 



226 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 



XXXIX. 

A Hero from the Wigwam. 

THE appearance of Chief Joseph, who is 
perhaps the most famous American In- 
dian now alive, at the Grant Memorial 
exercises in New York city recalled to my 
mind very interesting personal reminis- 
cences. Chief Joseph and myself are na- 
tives of the same splendid mountain region 
in the Northwest, and, though he is a num- 
ber of years older, through all my boy- 
hood I had a great admiration for him, and 
have often seen him in his younger man- 
hood, when he was as fine a specimen of the 
plains chieftain as could be imagined. Ab- 
sence from the Western mountains has given 
me a sort of fellow-feeling with Chief Jo- 
seph. When I read some years since of his 
plea to the army officers, made at a time 
when he was confined down in the flat, sickly 
Indian Territory, " Give me just one little 
mountain and I will die content! " I could 
not restrain the tears of sympathy. 



A HERO FROM THE WIGWAM. 227 

Joseph fought for that which the white 
man calls patriotism when it has been 
crowned with success. His father received 
all the early explorers and settlers with un- 




Chief Joseph. 

suspicious generosity and in the spirit of a 
broad, manly fellowship. The Nez Perces 
prided themselves on having received Lewis 
and Clarke, Bonneville, Fremont, and other 



228 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

white men with the hand of friendship, and 
on never having falsified their promises. 
Up to the time of Joseph's outbreak, though 
a number of Nez Perces had been killed by 
white men, only one white man had ever 
fallen at the hand of a Nez Perce. 

Joseph's father joined with the other in- 
dependent chiefs in a formal treaty, con- 
cluded in the Walla Walla Valley in 1855, 
by which the Indians gave up all claims to 
certain large tracts of land. Old Joseph en- 
tered into this contract on the express stip- 
ulation that the Wallowa and Imnaha Val- 
leys should remain to him and his children 
forever. vSoon the white men wanted these 
valleys, and another treaty was made with 
several chiefs, but Joseph refused to have 
anything to do with it, and was not even 
present ; but these valleys that had been 
guaranteed to Joseph on the honor of the 
United States Government were by this new 
treaty taken from him. Joseph's own para- 
ble, by which he illustrated the cruel injus- 
tice of this treatment, cannot be improved 
upon. Said he: "A man comes to me and 



A HERO FROM THE WIGWAM. 229 

says, * Joseph, I like your horses, and I want 
to buy them.' I say, ' I do not want to sell 
them.' Then he goes to my neighbor and 
says, ' Joseph has some good horses, but he 
will not sell them,' and my neighbor says, 
' Pay me and you may have them.' And he 
does so, and then comes to me and says, 
* Joseph,- I have bought your horses.' " 

Despite all justice and reason, marauders 
poured into this beautiful country, the home 
of his youth,, and United States troops were 
sent to compel Joseph and his people to re- 
move to a strange reservation. Imagine the 
agony of brave-hearted men and women in 
an emergency like that ! Yet with a break- 
ing heart Joseph concluded to move. In 
his own language he says : "I said in my 
heart that rather than have war I would 
give up my country. I would give up 
everything rather than have the blood of 
white men upon the hands of my people." 

It was not easy for Joseph to bring his 
people to consent to move. The young men 
wished to fight. At this time Chief Joseph 
rode one day through his village with a 



230 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

revolver in each hand, saying he would shoot 
the first one of his warriors who should re- 
sist the government. Finally they gathered 
together their herds of cattle and horses and 
began to move. A storm came and raised 
the river so high that some of the cattle 
could not be taken across. Indian guards 
were put in charge of the cattle left behind. 
White men attacked these guards and drove 
away the cattle. Joseph could no longer 
restrain his men ; that was the birth of the 
Nez Perce Indian war. 

Nothing in the history of modern warfare 
surpasses in daring, genius, and bravery the 
exploits of Joseph, the Nez Perce chief. 
General O. O. Howard, who conducted the 
great pursuit, pays the highest possible 
tribute to his generalship. Joseph, after 
being defeated in a bitterly-contested battle, 
led his great caravan of two thousand horses 
or more, on which were women and chil- 
dren, the aged, the wounded, the palsied, 
and blind, by a seemingly impossible trail, 
interlaced with fallen trees, through the 
most rugged mountains to the Bitter Root 



A HERO FROM THE WIGWAM. 231 

Valley, where, with the cool wisdom of a 
Von Moltke or a Grant, he made a treaty of 
forbearance with the inhabitants, passing 
by settlements containing banks and stores, 
and near farms rich with stock, but taking 
nothing and hurting no one. So he pushed 
on ; he crossed the Rocky Mountains twice, 
the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, and 
was within one day's march of Canada when 
he was taken. 

During all this time the United States 
Government had thousands of soldiers in 
the field, under veteran officers, and had 
spent many millions of dollars in coping 
with this brave young hero. 

Yes, why not say hero? If we were read- 
ing of Roman or Grecian wars, we should 
certainly consider it something magnificent 
in a race that had been trodden under foot 
for a hundred years that it was still able to 
compel such respect for its patriotic devotion 
to home and kindred. 

If Joseph had been of less noble spirit, he 
need never have suffered capture. He him- 
self says: "We could have escaped if we 



232 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

had left our wounded behind. We were un- 
willing to do this." And then he adds, with 
bitter sarcasm, " We had never heard of a 
wounded Indian recovering while in the 
hands of white men." A little company 
did slip away and escaped across the line. 
When the government sent a commissioner 
over there to ask them to come back a squaw 
named " The-one-that-speaks-once," wife of 
" The-man-that-scatters-the-bear," stood up 
in the council and said: "I was over at 
your country. I wanted to raise my chil- 
dren over there, but you did not give me 
any time. I came over to this country to 
raise my children and to have a little peace." 
I hope that Joseph may grow old grace- 
fully, and that it may be true of him that 
" at evening time there shall be light. 



p 



THE AUTHOR OF MEMORIAL DAY. 233 



XL. 
The Author of Memorial Day. 
URELY no one thing has done so much 
to soften the bitterness which civil war 
left in our country as the beautiful 




Mrs. John A. Logan. 

ceremonies connected with Memorial Day. 
As the years have gone on, and every Me- 



234 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

morial Day the Southern soldiers have been 
more and more wont to cover the graves of 
their dead foemen with wreathes of Southern 
flowers, and again and again gray-haired 
veterans from both the " Blue and the 
Gray" have met beside the Hudson to do 
honor to the great commander who at Ap- 
pomattox said, " Let us have peace," the 
cold mists of suspicion and distrust have 
blown away, until again we see eye to eye. 
Mrs. John A. Logan, the wife of the he- 
roic volunteer general, and herself a brave 
personality, has given me the story of the 
conception of Memorial Day. In company 
with Colonel Charles L, Wilson, of Chicago, 
then editor of the Chicago Journal, his niece, 
Miss Anna Wilson (now Mrs. Horatio May, 
of Chicago), and a Miss Farrar, Mrs. Logan 
made a trip in March, 1868, to Richmond for 
the purpose of visiting the fortifications 
and battlefields around that city. General 
Logan was to have accompanied them, but 
could not leave his duties in the House of 
Representatives to do so, as some important 
measure was pending at that juncture. 



THE AUTHOR OF MEMORIAL DAY. 235 

When they returned they reported to him 
all that they had seen during their visit. 
Among other things Mrs. Logan was par- 
ticularly impressed by the evidences of des- 
olation and destruction which she witnessed 
everywhere, but which seemed to her to be 
particularly emphasized by the innumerable 
graves which filled the cemeteries, many 
of which were those of Confederate soldiers. 
In the summer before they had all been 
decorated by wreaths of flowers and little 
flags, all of which were faded, but which 
seemed to the tender-hearted woman to be a 
mute evidence of the devotion and gratitude 
of those people to the men who had lost 
their lives for their cause. 

In speaking of this General Logan said 
that it was not an original custom with the 
people of the South ; that the classics are full 
of descriptions of the customs of the ancients 
in decorating the graves and cinerary urns 
of their dead ; and that he considered it a 
most beautiful custom and one worthy to be 
copied, and, as he was then commander-in- 
chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, 



236 HEROIC PERSONALITIES. 

that he intended issuing an order, asking the 
entire people of the nation to inaugurate the 
custom of annually decorating the graves of 
the patriotic dead as a memorial to their 
sacrifice and devotion to country. 

He issued the first order for May 30th, 
1868, and it was so enthusiastically received 
and generally observed that he decided 
to cause it to be a national holiday by a joint 
resolution of Congress, and to make it one 
of the duties of the commanders of the Grand 
Army of the Republic to issue an order 
every year for its observance. And through 
his efforts this was accomplished, and has 
passed into history and made a beautiful 
custom perpetual. 

Mrs. May is now the only living member, 
besides Mrs. Logan, of the party whose visit 
to Richmond was the immediate cause of a 
general call for a Memorial Day. General 
Chipman was then adjutant-general of the 
Grand Army of the Republic, and General 
Logan sent for him, and they talked the 
matter over, and the order was vSigned by 
General Logan and General Chipman as his 



THE AUTHOR OF MEMORIAL DAY. 237 

adjutant-general of the Grand Army of 
the Republic. It was then the intention, 
also, to secure an appropriation every year 
from Congress to publish the proceedings of 
Memorial Day, so as to compile in that way 
the patriotic addresses that might be made ; 
but they became so voluminous that it was 
found impracticable ; and hence there was 
but one volume issued, this being entitled 
National iMcinorial Day. It was edited by 
Major Faehtes, who is also now dead. 

It will thus be seen that Memorial Day 
was born out of a partnership between a 
woman's tender heart and a man's noble 
purpose. It is also sweet to reflect that 
South and North united at its birth. The 
Southern mourners were the first to cover 
the graves of their dead with flowers, and 
their Northern brothers to call to it national 
attention and make the custom as wide as 
the country. 



BOOKS BY DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS. 



The Christ Brotherhood. i2mo,cioth, gilt top, 323 pp., $1.20. 

All who are acquainted with Dr. Banks's work in the ministry, both 
East and West, will at once recognize his fitness to tre.it the interesting 
and important subjects associated with Christian brotherliness. Like all 
of his books, this one is full of incident and graphic illustrations, and 
abounds in suggestive material, valuable to every public speaker. 

The Christ Dream. 121110, doth, gilt top, 275 pp., $1.20. 

A series of twenty-four sermons in which illustrations of the Christ 
ideal are thrown upon the canvas, showing here and there individuals who 
have risen above the selfish and measure up to the Christ dream. In tone 
it is optimistic, and sees the bright side of life. 

Heavenly Trade-Winds, a Volume of Sermons. i2mo, 
cloth, 351 pp., $1,25. 

" The sermons included in this volume have all lieen delivered in the 
regular course of my ministry in the Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Brooklyn. They have been blessed of God in comforting the 
weary, giving courage to the faint, arousing the indiflferent, and awaken- 
ing the sinful." — Author's Preface, 

Heroic Personalities, illustrated. i2mo,cioth, 2oopp.,$i.oo. 

Treats of striking and heroic incidents in the lives of forty men and 
women. These Are not mere biographical sketches, but each chapter con- 
tains a striking story of great possible value as illustrative material. 

Common Folks' Relig:ion. a Volume of Sermons. i2mo, 
cloth, 343 pp., $1.50. 

Dr. Banks presents Christ to the " common people," and preaches 
to everyday folk the glorious everyday truths of the Scripture, 

The People's Christ, a Volume of Sermons and Other 
Addresses and Papers. i2mo, cloth, 220 pp., $1.25. 
Their manner of presenting Christian truth is striking. 

Christ and His Friends, a Collection of Revival Sermons, 
Simple and Direct, and Wholly Devoid of Oratorical Arti- 
fice, but Rich in Natural Eloquence, and Burning with 
Spiritual Fervor. 121110, cloth, gilt top, 390 pp., $1.50. 

The author has strengthened and enlivened them with many illustra- 
tions and anecdotes. 

The Saloon-Keeper's Ledg:er. The Business and Financial 
Side of the Drink (Question. I2inc), cloth, 129 pp., 75 cents. 

Among the items treated are : The Saloon Debtor to Disease, Private 
and Social Immorality, Ruined Homes, Lawlessness and Crime, and 
Political Corruption. 

White Slaves ; or. The Oppression of the Worthy Poor. 

Fifty illustrations. i2mo, cloth, 327 pp., $1.50. 
The Rev. Dr. Banks has made a personal and searching investieation 
into the homes of the poorer classes, and in IVhite Slaves the results 
are given. 

239 



The Fisherman and His Friends. i2mo, cloth, gilt top, 

365 pages, $1.50. 

A companion volume to Christ and His Friends^ consisting of thirty- 
one stirring revival discourses, full of stimulus and suggestion for minis- 
ters, Bible class teachers, and all Christian workers and others who desire 
to become proficient in the supreme capacity of winning souls to Christ. 
They furnish a rich store of fresh spiritual inspiration, their subjects being 
strong, stimulating, and novel in treatment, without being sensational or 
elaborate. They were originally preached by the author in a successful 
series of revival meetings, which resulted in many conversions. 

Hero Tales from Sacred Story. The Romantic stories of 

Bible Characters Retold in Graphic Style, with Modern 
Parallels and Striking Applications. Richly illustrated 
with 19 full-page half-tone illustrations from Famous 
Paintings. i2mo, cloth, gilt top, 279 pp., $1.50. 

" One cannot imagine a better book to put into the hands of a young 
man or young woman than this." 

Seven Times Around Jericho. i2mo, buckram, 134 pp., 

75 cents. 

Seven strong and stirring temperance discoitr.ses, in which deep en- 
thusiasm is combined with rational reasoning — a refreshing change from 
the conventional temperance arguments. Pathetic incidents and stories 
are made to carry most convincingly their vital significance to the subjects 
discussed. They treat in a broad manner various features of the question. 

The Honeycombs of Life, a Volume of Sermons. i2mo, 
cloth, 397 pp., $1.50. 

Most of the discourses are spiritual honeycombs, means of refresh- 
ment and illumination by the way. '1 he volume is well laden with evan- 
gelical truth and breathes a holy inspiration. This volume includes Dr. 
iianks's memorial tribute to Lucy Stone and his powerful sermon in regard 
to the Chinese in America, entitled "' Our Brother in Yellow." 

Revival Quiver, a Pastor's Record of Four Revival Cam- 
paigns. 121110, cloth, 254 pp., $1.50. 
This book is, in some sense, a record of personal experiences in revival 
work. It begins with "Planning for a Revival." followed by " Methods 
in Revival Work." This is followed by brief outlines of some hundred or 
more sermons. They have points to them, and one can re:idily see that 
they were adapted to the purpose designed. 'I he volume closes with " A 
Scheme of City Evangelization." It seems to us a valuable book, adapted 
to the wants of many a preacher and pastor. 

Sermon Stories for Boys and Girls. i2mo, doth, 218 pp., 
$1.00. 

" The sermon stories which make up this volume have been gathered 
out of the current of life, and told in my own way to the children of the 
congregations where I have ministered from time to time." 

— A iithor's Pre/ace. 

An Oregon Boyhood. i2mo, cloth, 173 pp., $1.25. 

Dr. Banks takes his readers into an entirely new field \n An Oregon 
Boyhood, in which he gives the present generation a description of the 
scenes and adventures of boyhood and youth in that far Western country. 
240 



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